Chapter three: Complications of Caring.

'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me' is a phrase the large majority of people have heard since early childhood. Mostly, but not always, it was directed at the "out" crowd: the poor kids, the ones considered ugly or unattractive, the ones who for one reason or another didn't fit in with the popular crowd.

Like the redheaded boy sitting all alone in the dining hall of the summer camp his parents had pressured him into attending. Not with ill-intent mind you, but in the hopes that maybe he could finally start making friends and have a normal childhood.

There is another phrase most people have heard since early childhood that goes, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

In the small redheaded boys case, it applied perfectly.

His camp-mates didn't like him and never passed up a chance to remind him of that. His family, while not exactly poor, were certainly near the bottom of the financial totem pole. If he wasn't being teased over that, it was because of his stuttering. If not because of his stuttering, it was because of piss-poor athletic talent.

Sometimes, it was nothing more than his unusually bright, nearly orange hair color.

The ones running the camp didn't much care about his problems with the other kids. To them, if forty-nine out of fifty kids enrolled at the camp didn't like one specific person, it was probably the kids fault.

Besides, being a semi-private camp meant they'd rather lose one kid whose parents had to scrape and save just to have enough money to send him, rather than the forty-nine whose families could easily afford it.

And so, in the interest of keeping sponsors and well-to-do parents pleased, the little redheaded boy became a literal nobody. As in, nobody ate with him, nobody wanted to swim or hike with him, nobody wanted him on their baseball team, nobody wanted to talk with him...Nobody wanted him around, period.

Except an odd looking man with gray skin and black holes for eyes.

After a "chance" encounter, the gray creature became the boys only friend in the entire camp. It didn't take long to earn his trust and once he did, Malice made him an, as the saying goes, "offer he can't refuse."

If the boy would agree to do one small, tiny favor for him, he'd be given everything he needed to strike back at those who gleefully made his life a nightmare.

The boys acceptance was immediate.

...

An evil smile spread over the creatures face as he replayed the memory of that day so many years ago. Even with the boys living conditions being what they were, he didn't think the little nobody would agree as easily as he did.

Of course, had he told him that the "small, tiny favor" included selling his soul and becoming little more than his lapdog, he may have declined (especially if forewarned about some of the more horrific jobs that would be required of him). For years, Malice used the boy as his own personal bitch in the struggle against humanity and, more specifically, against the Care Bears.

Of course, nothing lasts forever and that included the boys servitude.

During the final battle with the Care Bear Family, a young brunette named Christy (who had a very similar arrangement with him that he had with Malice), broke their deal and freed the Care Bears from their crystal prison. Caught in the crossfire, Christy was hit by a stray energy attack and was left literally stuck between life and death.

Working with his former enemies, they were able to break the curse and free her mind and soul. No longer under Malice's strangle-hold, the boy and Christy grew up, fell in love, and got married. Since that fateful day years ago, the redheaded boy was allowed to live and enjoy life as a free man, no longer controlled by evil.

But not for long.

Unseen and undetected, he watched as the young man named Derek Hoyt finished securing the boats to the docks. His wife Christy called for him from the open door of the cabin they shared, right by the lake, in the same camp they had met at years ago.

Derek was completely unaware his life was about to take a drastic turn of direction. Humming happily to himself, he trotted off for his cabin completely unaware of Malices presence. He had almost reached the front door when he sudden dropped like a rock, hit by a red lightning strike so agonizing he couldn't even scream.

Christy, at first, had no clue what happened. One moment he was tying off boats and the next he was lying on the ground. Panicked, she dropped the utensils she was holding an raced outside. "Derek whats wrong? Are you ok?" she asked, her voice thick with worry.

The redheaded man on the ground began to laugh; quietly at first, then growing louder and harder until he sounded like a mad lunatic in an asylum.

"Not Derek..." he answered. Christys confusion was written plainly on her face but she ignored it for now. Reaching down, she grabbed his arm to help him to his feet.

"Get away from me..."

Her eyes widened as cold fear began to creep up her spine, "Derek please, tell me whats wrong." Her husbands voice sounded so different, so...evil. He sounded the same way he did back when he was-

He lifted his head up to look at her and she went from cold fear to frozen horror. Dereks bright blue eyes had changed into the malevolent red they were when they first met.

"Not Derek.." he repeated, "I...am...Dark Heart." A few seconds later when she finally got her trembling voice under control, she reached out for him with unsteady hands, telling him how hes stronger than this and pleading for him to fight it off.

To her great shock he back-handed her so hard she cried out, her vision distorted from the tears forming in her eyes. Without a glance backward, he transformed into the same red mist he had used before and took off, flying at high speed until finally he was too far out of range to see.

Christys tearing up changed into full-blown crying, falling to her knees in shock.

"Oh God this cant be happening. Derek please...what am I going to do now?"

...

It'd been four days since Care-A-Lot was attacked. Although still highly emotional and saddened, the Care Bears decided to put their grieving on hold for a while and resume their duty of caring for the world as best as they could. Given their current state of affairs, "as best as they could" meant either having to use Nimbus, or hitching a ride with one of the Z Fighters. Deprived of their own means of transportation, their effectiveness and capacity to help those in need took a steep drop.

With their caring meter gone, the Care Bears were more-or-less flying blind with no way to monitor the level of caring on Earth. They came to Bulma with their dilemma and the blue-haired scientist was happy to help. A couple of days later, they had a brand new caring meter. It wasn't as big or ornate as their old one but it'd do the job just fine.

Standing in a circle, the Care Bear family held hands and concentrated. Their tummy symbols began to glow and in no time at all they had the last piece they needed; a Care Crystal. This vital part is what enabled the meter to monitor the amount of caring on Earth. Formed from their love and feelings, the Care Crystal was about the size of a baseball and sparkled brighter than any diamond on the planet.

With Bulma, her parents, Trunks, and Goten watching, Grumpy Bear installed the crystal into its proper place. When it began to glow, he smiled in satisfaction and closed the access panel. There was, however, one small problem.

"Sorry Grumpy, but looks like you did something wrong." said Bright Heart Raccoon. Before they were forced to leave Care-A-Lot, the meter was reading 10 out of 12. Now, for whatever reason, it was reading 7 out of 12.

Looking at the meter's face with annoyance, Grumpy opened the panel again, removed the crystal, and re-inserted it. "Still 7 out of 12." Bright Heart said.

Once again, Grumpy removed the crystal but this time checked the gears, springs, and mechanisms. When they all were found to be working properly, he fit the crystal back into place. It lit up again, and this time...

"Still on 7 Grumpy."

"Ok this is stupid. Its glowing, all the parts are working, and everything's installed correctly but its still giving false readings." Grumpy said in a gruffer, more irritated tone than usual.

Secret Bear tapped Friend Bear on the shoulder, whispering something in her ear. "Secret Bear says there's nothing wrong with the meter." she relayed.

"Well if there's nothing wrong with it why does-" Grumpy started to retort before a look of fear crossed his face. What if the meter really WAS correct?

"There is no way that's right. When we left Care-A-Lot it was on 10, now less than a week later it drops 3 levels?" Brave Heart protested.

"How fast does it normally fall?" Dr. Briefs asked.

"Well when Dark Heart was still around it dropped about 1 level every two or three weeks." Tender Heart replied.

"And when Nicholas and the Spirit Book were causing trouble it was about 1 level every 7-10 days but thats because his influence was spread much farther than Dark Hearts." Cheer Bear answered, adding that even with all the problems caused by those two, it still didn't drop as fast as it was currently.

At the moment Bulmas phone began to ring. She flipped it open and held it to her ear.

"Bulma Briefs spea- oh hey Gohan, everything ok?"

A few seconds of silence later and Bulma thanked him and hung up. "Cheer could you please grab my tablet off my desk?" Bulma requested. Cheer left the room, coming back a minute or two later with Bulmas requested item.

"Everything ok?" she asked while handing it over. "I'm not sure...Gohan told me to check the news because there was something going on he thought I needed to see."

"...equipped and trained to handle the situation, adding that they will seek charges against participants."

An on-screen name-box appeared at the bottom of the screen, listing the reporter as Basil Everhurst, and her location as Orange Star City. Behind her was what appeared to be a full-blown riot in progress. Several vehicles had been rolled over or vandalized and a couple of them were even on fire. The camera zoomed in on a group of teenagers as they threw rocks or bricks through storefront windows.

"Officials are still speculating over the motivating factor behind such a wide-spread disturbance that still shows no clear sign of coming to a close. For SCTV, I'm Basil Everhurst."

"Well I guess that helps explain the drop on the caring meter." Grumpy said with a scowl.

Trunks nudged his friend as a huge grin spread over his face, "Hey Goten, lets go beat those guys up. Bet that'd help bring the Caring Meter up a notch or two."

"Yeah! I'm with you Trunks. Come on."

"Hold it buster! Where do you two think you're going?" Bulma asked.

"Well, the Caring Meter dropped a little because of all the people rioting at Orange Star City right? Well me and Goten are gonna go beat some of them up... you know, teach 'em a lesson." Trunks replied.

"That way they'll stop fighting and wrecking things, right Trunks?" Goten added. His friend nodded in agreement, trying not to grin too broadly. Although a small part of the boys motivation really was as they claimed, the bulk of it was they were two half-Saiyans and loved to fight.

"Trunks, Goten...its very touching that you want to help, but fighting isn't the answer." Cheer Bear told them in a gentle tone of voice. Deep down, Cheer knew, just as the rest of the Family did, that sometimes fighting was unavoidable. She wasn't about to say that in front of two eager half-Saiyans obviously, but she wasn't naive enough to believe that every crisis could be solved without fighting.

"Cheer Bears right." Tender Heart added, "I don't know what's going on to make people act like that, but its probably something that would be helped a great deal by just talking about it."

'Good luck with that.' Trunks thought to himself.

Tempting as it may be to risk it and go anyway, he knew that such an action could easily lead to having to deal with an exceptionally angry mother and, by extension, an angry father. For Goten, the outcome would be even worse. Even if his father supported the idea, his mother would surely not, and all hope of Goku coming to his defense would be gone the moment Chi-Chi started one of her famous bitch-fits.

Slightly bummed out, the boys decided that if they couldn't go beat the rioters and criminals up, they'd do the next best thing: beat each other up. As they took off to one of the many remote locations used for sparring, Bulma just sighed, concerned that before long her purple haired boy was going to adopt his fathers habit of acting first, then reasoning.

She took comfort in the fact that at least Trunks vocalized his intentions instead of just up and leaving. Had it been Vegeta in his shoes, he'd have just left without a word and she probably wouldn't have known unless he or one of the other Z Fighters told her about it.

Or unless he got carried away and ended up on the nightly news channels.

...

Within a few days, life at Capsule Corp seemed to more-or-less fall into a loose rhythm.

Goku, Gohan, Trunks, Goten, Krillan, and Yamcha had begun "taking turns" flying the Care Bears to whereever they were needed. Dende, being the Guardian of the Earth, did the best he could to assist from his vantage point on the Lookout. With Wish Bear and her Star Scope gone, the young Namekian would contact whatever Z Fighter was available and relay the information about who needed what and where. If no one was available to take them, the Care Bears would use Nimbus or, on occasion, Bulma would fly them to and from their destination.

Despite all that the Care Bears had going against them, they still tried very hard to brighten the day of those in need, especially their newfound friends at Capsule Corp.

Bulma would have never guessed such an odd assortment of multi-colored small animals could be so helpful. Bright Heart Raccoon turned out to be a big help in the labs, just as Grumpy was in maintenance.

Swift Heart Rabbit was undoubtedly the fastest errand runner she'd ever seen, aside from Gokus Instant Transmission that is. Marron, the young blonde daughter of Krillan and Android 18, had put in she wanted to be a cheerleader when she was a little older, and so had taken a strong liking to Cheer Bear.

Like most kids, Trunks and Goten were very fond of video games (especially first-person shooters) and one night decided to ask Share Bear if she'd like to play.

As one could imagine, giving a Care Bear a machine gun with instructions to go around murdering people was not a good idea.

"Whats your problem? I'm just trying to talk to you!" she yelled in annoyance. Told to stay at headquarters and guard her teams flag, Share Bear did what any Care Bear would have done in her situation: Attempt to get the enemy to share their feelings on why they'd want to steal something that doesn't belong to them.

"You're supposed to kill them when they break in." Goten told her. Trunks nodded in agreement, adding that that was the entire point behind this particular game mode. "Can't our team and their team just share the flag instead of killing each other over it?" she asked innocently. "Goten we need to switch modes, shes sucking at this one." Trunks commented after a few more minutes had gone by.

Changing the type to Team Deathmatch, they soon discovered that also posed several problems.

"Wait! Where is everyone going?" she asked out-loud after the team split up 5 seconds into the game. "Share Bear you're on a team, but you're supposed to go off on your own to score kills." Trunks tried to explain. Forty-five minutes later, Share had scored exactly 1 kill and it was friendly fire.

"Lets try free-for-all Trunks, that ones easy." Goten suggested.

"Ok Share Bear, there are no teams, no flags, and no headquarters, ok?" Trunks asked. The purple Care Bear nodded in understanding.

"You're supposed to shoot everyone you see, got it? Everyone you will see is an enemy that's trying to kill you, so kill them first." Goten added. "Got it." Share Bear acknowledged.

"It feels like we're talking to a little kid." Trunks complained while the game loaded.

"Uh...aren't WE little kids?" Goten asked. The brainless, half-witted expression on his face made his father look like Einstein.

Share Bear was doing horrible, as predicted. To her credit, she did seem to do better in this game mode than the others. At least the boys had gotten her to understand the concept of "everybody shoots everybody because they're all enemies."

"Hey Goten, shes still losing but I think maybe she gets it now." Trunks commented.

"Oh no! Someones hurt over there!" Share said in alarm. One of the players had gone into Last Stand and Share's Care Bear instinct kicked in, prompting her to run to the fallen player in the hopes of helping.

"NOOOOOOO!" Goten and Trunks yelled in unison.

Too late. The minute the downed enemy saw her coming he took aim and put a bullet in her head.

Trunks just face-palmed with a sigh, "No more shooters for you, lets stick with Pokemon or something."

The boys weren't the only ones having difficulty with their new friends. While practicing with Marron one afternoon, Cheer Bear became curious as to what was going on in that weird looking house next to the Capsule Corp building. Every so often the building would start to shake, or the ground would rumble, or loud yelling and cursing could be heard from the outside.

Finally she asked about it and found out the "house" was actually Vegetas Gravity Chamber, and that the noises and tremors she had felt was because of his high-intensity training. Curious about what was going on in there, the pink Care Bear borrowed a small step ladder and climbed up to watch through one of the viewing portals.

At first she saw only a few metal ball-type things floating around shooting energy blasts at something. Scanning the inside of the red-tinted room, she at first couldn't see what they were supposed to be shooting at. Then she saw Vegeta appear off to her right, jumping straight up into the air just as a wave of energy collided with the wall where he had been standing.

'Oh so THATS what he's doing.' Cheer thought silently to herself, 'He's working really hard at this... plus he's so good at it!'

The training droids veered off course and re-grouped into a side-by-side formation at one end of the room while Vegeta readied himself at the other. With the droids starting to glow in preparation for an attack, Vegeta just smirked and stood his ground, facing them head on as they powered up for an attack.

"Hey Vegeta!" Cheer yelled, tapping on the portal. Taken totally by surprise, he turned to look and saw Cheer Bear grinning at him from outside the chamber.

"You're doing great!" she yelled, giving him a thumbs-up.

"What the hell do you think-" he started to yell but never got to finish. In the split-second that his attention was diverted to the Care Bear watching him, the training droids all fired at once. Hit by all five of the charged-up blasts, Vegeta was propelled off his feet and into the wall of the chamber, crashing into it with the force of a minor earthquake.

Without hesitation, Cheer jumped down and ran to the door of the chamber, ready to do her best at caring for the injured Prince.

Nearly two hours later, Vegeta had finally calmed down enough that Bulma felt reasonably certain he wouldn't kill the little pink bear in her sleep. Cheer Bear tried numerous times to apologize but never made any progress with the enraged Saiyan. On one hand, Vegeta knew the weird little creature was only trying to compliment him and hadn't intended to cause him injury.

On the other hand, fuck her, nobody disturbs the Prince of all Saiyans during training.

...

"It feels like we've been away for years." Noble Heart yawned behind the wheel of the Cloud Clipper, his and True Heart Bears favorite way of getting around in the skies far above Earth. Although sailing through the Rainbow River was a little more time consuming than cars or Rainbow Rollers, it was also very relaxing and left a lot of free time for talking and laughing.

But as soon as Care-A-Lot came into view, any laughing ceased instantly.

"Are you sure we went the right way?" True Heart asked. Standing on deck, they surveyed the area with a frozen lump caught in their throats. The remains of the dock assured them they were indeed in Care-A-Lot, but that was the only thing they were sure of.

The homes of various Care Bears had been reduced to little more than a heap of bricks. Proud Heart Cats bakery was little more than a few pieces of the foundation. The Hall of Hearts was simply gone, as was the Caring Meter, its stairway and platform, and Friendship Hall where so many meals were cooked and good times had.

Black scorch marks littered the ground. No birds were singing, no laughter or voices heard. It looked like Care-A-Lot had been on the losing end of an all-out war.

"Who could have possibly done this..?" True Heart asked quietly. She caught sight of something shiny on the ground and bent down to retrieve it. "What'd you find?" Noble Heart asked.

True Heart turned around and showed it to him. It was Wish Bears Star Scope, and it had dried blood on it. For a moment neither said a word, then a high-pitched squeaking caught their attention and they followed it to its source. Half-buried in the clouds, the Heart Buddy squeaked weakly, trying to get their attention.

Kneeling down, Noble Heart picked it up and held it to his ear. The more the Heart Buddy talked, the worse Noble Hearts expression became. Finally it could hold out no longer and fell silent, its body fading away as it died.

"What did he say?" True Heart asked, helping her friend back to his feet.

"He said Malice attacked Care-A-Lot when the visitors from Earth arrived, and that he killed Funshine, Lotsa, Playful, and Champ, and possibly Wish Bear too. "

True Hearts eyes widened and she clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle her shocked gasps.

"And also that the family was evacuated to somewhere called Capsule Corporation." Noble Heart continued.

"We HAVE to get down there as quick as possible." True Heart decided.

"But how? The Cloud Clipper can't make the trip to Earth." the purpose horse reminded her.

True Heart thought it over for several seconds before getting an idea. "Lets split up and see if we can find any Cloud Cars that are usable." she suggested. Within the hour, they were able to locate two that had suffered only minor damage. Repairs were easy and shortly after they were ready to leave.

"Come on, we have to hurry." True Heart said as she sat behind the wheel. Noble followed suit and seconds later they were on their way to Earth, both of them secretly afraid of what they would discover once they arrived.