Disclaimer: Dragonball Z is the property of Akira Toriyama. This story was written for fun, not profit.
Author's Note: Many thanks to everyone who reviewed, and especially to those brave individuals who put up with me while I hashed out plot points. You people are saints. Seriously.
--
Road Less TraveledChapter Three: Run Through The Jungle
--
Thought it was all a nightmare.
Lord, it's all so true.
They told me, "Don't go walkin' slow.
The devil's on the loose."
– Creedence Clearwater Revival
--
If Bulma had been given any time to think, she might have wondered how it was that Cami had steered her so unerringly toward a ruined field and a crater filled with smoking wreckage. She might even have been apprehensive. But she was worried and angry, and all she did was silently thank whichever deities happened to be listening that her daughter had some kind of undiscovered skill.
And when she landed in the crater, even that thought flew completely out her head. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of blood and burning circuitry, and there were bodies thrown everywhere. Bulma saw the bastard who had kidnapped Gohan sprawled amidst the remnants of some kind of ship, a hole burned through his chest. She couldn't bring herself to feel sick at the sight. On the contrary, all she felt was a kind of vicious, vindictive pleasure.
Leaving Cami with the stolen hoverbike, she pushed past a dark-haired, battered woman and picked her way through the shrapnel to where Goku lay. He had a similar hole through him. Bulma didn't bother to look for a pulse. No one survived that kind of wound, not even someone as strong as her husband.
She reached down to squeeze his hand, then jerked back with a yelp as his body began to fade away. "What the hell?"
"It was Kami," a voice said behind her.
Bulma spun around and found herself facing someone tall and green and horribly familiar. She swallowed and took an involuntary step back, because the last thing she wanted to do now was deal with Piccolo on her own. But that was exactly the situation she found herself in. Goku was dead and their other friends were miles away, and she was the only person standing between an old enemy and her twins.
"What're you talking about?" she demanded, surprised that she sounded angry instead of frightened. "Where's Goku?"
Piccolo gave her a withering look. "He's been taken to the station for dead spirits," he growled, and then turned his back and stalked off.
Right toward the twins.
Gohan had been spread out on the ground when Bulma had arrived, unconscious, but not visibly hurt. As soon as her mother had let her go, Cami had run over to crouch beside him, as if her presence could somehow protect him. Now Bulma watched as her daughter climbed to her feet – trembling and clearly terrified, but unwilling to abandon her twin.
But Piccolo didn't even glance at her. He simply bent down and scooped up Gohan, and then turned away. The little boy seemed impossibly tiny in his arms.
Bulma crossed the distance between them in a few quick strides. She didn't dare to get in Piccolo's way, because she knew perfectly well that he could kill her. Instead she attempted to keep pace with him, almost running to cover the same ground as each of his long strides.
"Put him down!" she snarled. "I'll kill you if you hurt him! I swear I will!"
Piccolo stopped and turned toward her, as if he had only just remembered that she was there. He nodded toward the dead kidnapper as he spoke. "He said that two others are coming soon."
"Two others? Like that bastard?" She took Piccolo's lack of response for a yes, and plowed on. "Then we'll deal with that when the time comes! Now give him back!'
She was ignored, of course. Piccolo simply turned and walked away from her again. "I'm training the boy. When you wish his father back, tell him I'll return his son in a year."
Bulma balled her hands into fists, but could do nothing as he took to the air. For the second time that day, she watched helplessly as her son was carried far beyond her reach – except that this time, there was no one left to bring him back.
"What're we gonna do?" Cami asked. She was clutching at the hem of her stupid, frilly dress and peering a point in the distance anxiously. Bulma would have bet any money that she would know exactly where Gohan had been taken.
She sighed and hung her head for a long moment, drawing a shuddering breath to collect herself. "Find the woman who was here when we landed. See if she has a phone or a radio." When Cami nodded and scampered, apparently glad to have something to do, Bulma squared her shoulders and marched back over to the body of her son's kidnapper. Then she reached down and removed his strange eyepiece. It looked like some kind of scanner or transmitter, although the language was nothing she could identify. She wasn't dealing with the body. As far as she was concerned, the bastard could rot for what he had done.
That left her with one other casualty.
There was a very young woman in the middle of crater – more like a girl, Bulma saw as she moved closer. She was dressed in a red uniform much like the ones the hoverbike owners had been wearing at the stadium. It didn't take any kind of medical expertise to see that she was in bad shape. Since she didn't have any senzus with her, Bulma crouched by her and began to check injuries she could deal with.
"The other lady called for help." Cami said as she reappeared at the edge of the crater. The dark-haired woman was sitting next to her, looking dazed. From the way her arm was looped around Cami's shoulders, she must have needed help to move herself at all. When Bulma glanced at her face, sensing that she should know those features, the woman blinked at her and gave her a thin half-smile.
"Rough day?" she asked hoarsely.
Bulma grimaced. "Yeah," she agreed, and went back to checking the girl. "Rough day."
--
Gohan woke up when someone dunked him in a pond.
"Hey!" He flailed until he made his way back to dry land, and then flopped on his stomach long enough to blink water out of his eyes. His entire head was throbbing. For a few seconds he wondered what scheme of his had gone awry, and if there was any way he and Cami could talk their way out of trouble this time.
Then he realized there was soft grass tickling his face, and that his half-fisted hand was covered with grime and burns. When he took a breath, something hitched in his throat and he coughed. His throat felt like it was coated with dust.
Maybe the pond was a good idea, he thought blearily, levering himself up on his arms.
Something grabbed the back of his shirt and hauled him upright – an action that brought back sudden memories of the spaceship and his kidnapper and his father. He twisted and flailed around until he found himself staring up at something green and almost certainly not human.
Later he would deny screaming. But at that moment, he yelled for all he was worth and struggled frantically, desperate to get away.
The green man glared at him. "Shut up, kid. We need to talk."
Gohan opened his mouth to bellow, but something about the way the man was looking at him made him clam up. He had seen this guy fight beside his dad, which probably meant he was some old friend of the family – and ticking him off wouldn't be a good idea.
"'Bout what?" he asked, trying to keep his voice level.
The man dropped him. While Gohan sat on the ground, rubbing his sore head and wondering if he could get away with kicking the jerk in the shins, he refolded his arms and peered down at him. There was a long, strained silence.
Finally Gohan worked up the nerve to make a face at him. "I thought you said we were gonna talk! And where's Daddy, you jerk?"
"He's dead," the man said.
Gohan felt as if someone had opened up a pit beneath his feet. There were rock-hard certainties in his life, and one of them was that no matter how many times he and Cami drove them completely nuts, his parents would always make things better. They could fix anything and do everything, because they were strong and brilliant and Daddy and Mommy – and one of the most important things that made them Daddy and Mommy was that they didn't up and die.
He scrubbed at his eyes and sniffled, desperately trying not to cry. "You're lying," he muttered, although he didn't really believe his own words.
"Don't start bawling," the man grumbled. "You'll regret it." He waited until Gohan had lifted his head, bristling with fear and outrage, before he spoke again. "We can wish him back with the Dragon Balls."
"So why don't we?" Gohan asked. His voice caught, but he managed to gulp back a sob. He was not going to start crying. Not in front of strangers, anyway.
The man didn't seem to notice. "Two aliens will be here in a year. Your father will be killed again unless you train to help him fight them. Understand?"
Gohan shook his head. "I'm only gonna be five," he said, and spread the fingers of one hand wide, just in case the dummy couldn't count. "I can't fight aliens if I'm five! I won't be strong enough!"
In answer, the man reached down and grabbed him by the head. There was a sensation of movement, and then something that felt like the time Cami had pushed one of their dad's wrist weights onto him. He bounced and landed roughly on the ground, rubbing his head and glaring for all he was worth.
The man pointed behind him.
With a sudden, sick sense of dread, Gohan turned and stared at what he had been thrown into. It was some kind of rocky outcropping – and in the middle of it, right where he had hit, was an indentation the size of a dinner plate.
"I did that?" he asked numbly. It was more of a rhetorical question than anything else. There was no other explanation for the indentation, or for the fact that his head felt like someone had set off a gong inside it.
The man was still watching him silently. He was beginning to give Gohan the creeps.
He climbed to his feet and walked back over, rubbing his sore head. "What's your name?"
There was a long silence, as if the man was a bit miffed that he didn't know. Then, after a moment, "Piccolo."
"I'm Gohan," he said, "and you didn't have to throw me."
Piccolo seemed remarkably unrepentant. "Get used to it. I'm training you, not coddling you." He glanced at their surroundings, which showed no sign of human habitation. "I'm leaving you for six months. If you survive, we'll see how well you fight."
"What? HEY!" Gohan drew himself up to his full height and balled his hands into fists. "You can't just leave me here! There's no fridge! Where'd my bed? I have to go to school!"
Piccolo sneered at him and took off. Gohan jumped and tried to catch him, but he fell far short and wound up making an undignified landing in the pond. By the time he hauled himself out again, he was stranded.
The little boy hugged his knees to his chin. He had been so happy this morning, when all he had worried about was getting more hot dogs than Cami and hiding baseballs from his mother and father. Now it seemed as if all of that had happened to other people, other Gohans who didn't have to worry about aliens showing up or fathers dying or stupid green jerks abandoning them in the middle of nowhere.
"Stupid Piccolo," he muttered, and made sure nobody was there to see before he let himself cry.
--
West Capitol Hospital was used to the Briefs-Sons. It had to be. Between laboratory accidents, training mishaps, and the most destructive children known to man, the doctors and nurses in the emergency room and intensive care unit were on a first-name basis with the famous family. More than a first-name basis, actually; there was a new pediatric unit in the works, courtesy of Dr. Briefs's considerable appreciation.
So no one was terribly shocked when Bulma, freshly showered and snarling for all she was worth, marched in with her daughter in her arms. Even if they had been, they wouldn't have stopped her, much less attempted to question her. When she demanded to know where Yamcha's room was, the nearest nurse pointed her in the right direction and then got out of the line of fire. Anyone who got in her way when she had that expression on her face was asking for ruined eardrums.
A few minutes after she had stormed through the front doors, Bulma found herself sitting in one of the hard plastic chairs by her friend's bed. She had seen worse injuries plenty of times, but she squeezed his hand anyway. Both Yamcha and Goku would both be fighting the aliens in a year, which meant there was the distinct possibility that she would have to go through all of this again – that she would lose her husband and one of her oldest friends all at once.
Of course, if Goku and the other fighters lost, she probably wouldn't have time to think about wishing them back. In fact, she would probably be joining them in the afterlife. It wasn't a pleasant realization.
"Is Uncle Yamcha gonna die too?" Cami asked.
Bulma shook her head and reached over to ruffle her daughter's hair. She wasn't used to seeing Cami like this, so quiet and fearful. But then again, she very rarely saw either twin without the other right alongside them. She thought of them as a unit, because it was easy mental shorthand and they tended to act in tandem anyway. Separating them – making them Gohan and Cami instead of GohanCami – was something she hadn't tried to do since they were very small.
A thought belatedly occurred to her, and she leaned down to peer at her daughter intently. "Cami? Can you tell me where your brother is?"
Cami gave her a bewildered look and pointed straight ahead of her. "That way."
"You can always tell?"
The expression on her daughter's face shifted into something she was more familiar with – proud of her abilities, mischievous, opinionated, very much her mother's child. "'Course I can."
Bulma ignored a strange twinge in the back of her head, much like the nagging feeling she always got when she felt she was missing something important. She shook the thought away and dug through her pockets until she found a few crumpled bills. "Here," she said, passing the money over to Cami. "Go get me some coffee."
"Can I get some food too?"
"Fine. Sure. Scram."
Cami didn't need further encouragement. She practically ran out of the room, leaving Bulma alone with Yamcha. Someone would have to tell Puar what had happened at some point – just one more item on her growing list of things that needed to be done right now, today, this minute.
Another item on the list, maybe even higher than contacting Puar, was finding the two women she had seen at the crater. Although Bulma had only stuck around long enough to make sure that an ambulance was really coming, she had memorized as many details as she could. Other than her missing son and a very untrustworthy Piccolo, those women were the only people who knew exactly what had happened when her husband died.
Bulma sighed and scrubbed her face. She had already contacted Kuririn and told him to get to the hospital as soon as he could. While he and Yamcha hunted down the Dragon Balls, she would see about tracking the women down. They were both Royal Home Guards, or so the stolen hoverbike and the uniforms suggested, and there were only so many people in the Emperor's ineffective security force. Sooner or later, Bulma would find them.
Cami wandered back into the room with the coffee and what looked like half a vending machine's worth of snacks. She clutched three bags of potato chips protectively to her chest and scowled at her mother, as if daring her to protest.
"Don't get caught," Bulma said, and pointedly looked away while she sipped her coffee. She knew Cami was breaking about a half-dozen rules, but when had either of her children ever cared about obeying authority?
While her daughter tore through her snacks with enough gusto to do Goku proud, Bulma wrapped her fingers around the cardboard coffee cup and peered at Yamcha. He was starting to stir, which she knew meant he was probably going to wake up soon. At least that was what she hoped it meant; she felt very alone, and she needed someone to vent at. Or scream at. Or cry at. Or something.
Sure enough, her friend's eyes fluttered open after a few minutes. He blinked blearily, taking in his surroundings, before his gaze finally locked on her face. "Bulma?"
Before she could say anything, Cami let out a squeal and dove across the room, landing on her favorite uncle's stomach and throwing her arms around his neck. "You're not dead! I thought you were gonna die!"
"Huh? No, I'm – ow! Cami! I liked that rib!" Yamcha gently pried her off and sat up, hissing and pressing one hand to his bandaged torso, glancing over at Bulma. "I feel like someone dropped one of your planes on me."
She felt her lips twitch. "No planes. Just an alien."
"A what?" Yamcha groaned and flopped back against his pillow, apparently deciding getting up wasn't the best idea after all. "Please tell me Goku beat the crap out of it."
There was a moment of silence and a sniffle – all the warning either of them had before Cami burst into tears.
That seemed to be all the answer Yamcha needed. His face fell, and he grimaced at Bulma. "Damn. Who do we have to wish back?"
"Who do you think?" Bulma snapped.
"Goku?" When Bulma just glared at him, he scooted as far away from her as his injuries allowed and gingerly patted Cami's back. "But he got the alien, right?"
Bulma very nearly threw something at him. "A lot of good that did! Piccolo decided to kidnap Gohan! And we've got more aliens coming a year from now! This hasn't been a good day, Yamcha!"
"Yeah, I can tell." Yamcha absently wrapped an arm around Cami, who scrubbed at her eyes with her sleeve. When he seemed satisfied that she was settled, he covered his face with his free hand and addressed the world in general. "What the hell are we supposed to do?" he asked.
"Wish Goku back, for starters." Kuririn's voice drifted into the room a half-second before he walked in and took over the other plastic chair.
"You heard?" Bulma snapped. She wasn't in the mood for pleasantries.
"Yeah, once I got the doctors to let me through. I told them I was with you and they ran away."
Bulma snorted. "I can't imagine why."
The former monk grinned and then propped his chin on his hands, suddenly looking about as tired as Bulma felt. "I think I broke the island's capsule plane trying to get here."
"I'll get you another one. What did that pervert say?"
Kuririn shrugged. "Master Roshi thinks we should meet up on the island and start looking for the Dragon Balls there."
"What about me?" Yamcha asked. He had acquired what Bulma termed the deer-in-the-headlights expression, most often found when he was trapped in an unpleasant situation or cornered by some woman or another. "Please tell me that includes breaking me out of this place."
Kuririn shrugged. "That's the plan."
"Good. I'm going stir-crazy in here." Yamcha started to scan the room, his temporary relief vanishing almost as quickly as it had appeared. "Wait. Where the hell is my uniform?"
"After that fight?" Bulma shrugged. "Probably on its way to a landfill."
"What?"
"I saw the stadium when I was flying over," Kuririn said. "It's in ruins. You're lucky you only broke some ribs, so quit whining already."
The former thief set his jaw. "I am not whining," he ground out through clenched teeth, "and I am not going to Roshi's island in a hospital gown."
Bulma huffed and climbed to her feet. "Fine. I'll go see what I can arrange. The doctors should discharge the crybaby here if I say so."
"I'm not a – " Yamcha began, and then clamped his mouth shut with what he probably thought was a frightening glare. This lasted for all of five seconds, right up until Cami clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle a giggle. For the moment, at least, she seemed to have forgotten her own fears.
Her mother sighed, feeling strangely envious of the little girl. But she had doctors to terrorize, and wishing things were simpler wouldn't make any kind of difference. She shook her head and walked out of the room without another word.
--
Radditz was a fucking idiot.
For Vegeta, this wasn't a particularly new thought. He was of the opinion that most beings were weaklings with barely two brain cells to rub together. This opinion informed a great deal of how he viewed the universe at large – and, for the most part, it had served him very well indeed.
But this went above and beyond the usual stupidity. Radditz had always been idiot. As of now he was a dead idiot, leaving his ruler short a subject.
Correction. Two subjects, if Vegeta had understood the scouter's garbled transmissions correctly.
The Saiyan prince folded his arms and leaned back in his seat, his brow furrowing as he replayed the jumbled scenes in his head. Given the readouts provided by the fucking idiot's scouter, none of the indigenous beings on the backwater little world represented any kind of challenge. The only natives who had been recorded in detail were a male, two females, and a child. While some of them had stood out sharply from the general population, none of them would have been able to stop a Saiyan infant, much less a trained fighter.
The anomalies, on the other hand…
Radditz's third-class brother had gone native, and he, his halfbreed son, and the Namek were all pathetically weak. They shouldn't have been able to kill a first-class fighter. But that wasn't what interested Vegeta. It was the Namek's last recorded words – his apparent boast, transmitted through the damaged scouter, that on that world they could wish people back from the dead.
Someone would call that claim to Frieza's attention eventually, but it would take time. If Vegeta moved quickly, the Aisujin would be far too late to stop him.
He glanced at the scouter's transmission again – at the still-living Namek, the halfbreed boy, and the natives who would undoubtedly be waiting for him and Nappa. His gaze lingered on the black-haired female and he smirked. If pathetic creatures like these were all that stood between him and his goals, he had nothing to worry about.