About Time

by April CK

Part 4

The sky was fifteen different shades of white, the ground was at least as many shades of black and the rest of the world was greyscale. Objects had vague fuzzy outlines as if nothing was definite. Videl was alarmed to note that this applied even to herself. Her form faded in and out of existence each time she coughed. The ground was visible through her feet.

HMMMM. It wasn't so much a spoken comment as it was an audible thought.

Videls ghost turned. She was fully prepared to see a tall skeletal human in a long black robe. So she blinked in surprise at the sight that greeted her instead. The creature had a wooden cane instead of a scythe, it didn't wear any robes and it was a far cry from skeletal. Videl placed a hand on her hip - very carefully so that the hand didn't go through her hip - and glowered down in disapproval. "What kind of lousy personification of Death are you, anyway?"

WHY SHOULD DEATH BE HUMAN? The cats eyes were squinted shut yet Videl felt the weight of the creatures stare. CATS HAVE TO DIE NINE TIMES.

Before Videl could reply, a young blue demon appeared nearby. The demon was clutching a clipboard with one hand and alternately adjusting either his tie or his thick-rimmed glasses with his other hand in a series of nervous gestures.

"Erm." The demon looked deceptively human at the moment but the short horns that protruded from his forehead were blatant reminders that the demon could make use of at least one other - presumably much more frightening - form. "Excuse me, Miss? It appears that you've died before your time. So if you'll come with me, we'll get the paperwork sorted out and then Lord Enma..."

Lord Enma was the judge of the dead and undisputed king of the office demons. Which meant that while Lord Enma had influence over the souls of the dead, he wasn't Death. Death preferred to be called Korin. He was better known for martial arts and senzu beans but hey - everyone needed hobbies.

The white cat watched the office demon lead Videls ghost away and twitched his ears thoughtfully. An awful lot of mortals had been dying before their time lately. It could only mean one thing and Korin didn't like what it meant.

More work for him, that's what it meant.

There was absolutely no point in standing around saying 'that can't happen' because it HAD happened. It didn't make sense and it wasn't fair but it had happened anyway. Life was like that. Gohan was learning to deal with it.

For once the excuses were working too. Gohan had gradually convinced himself that he couldn't really feel anything for someone that he hadn't gotten a chance to know. He'd basically grown up telling himself these same things each time anyone had died in front of him and it seemed like everyone had died in front of him at some point.

First there had been Dad - the first time Goku had died, Gohan had been nearly five years old. And Raditz might have been a jerk but he was also the only person that had ever called Gohan nephew. So even Raditzs death haunted Gohan a little bit because family wasn't supposed to act like that. Just because the bad guys were bad, that didn't make witnessing their deaths a pleasant affair. Anyway. Then Yamucha had died. After which had come the deaths of Chaozu, Tenshinhan, Nappa, Piccolo, Vegeta, Krillen and the residents of Planet Namek in general. Sure, almost everyone who wasn't evil had been wished back to life but that didn't erase Gohans memories of their previous deaths. Not to mention the memories of their more recent and much more permenant deaths.

Gohan was ten years old now and death was such a familiar event to him that, subconsciously, it was almost comforting. It made him feel physically sick to realize this on a conscious level.

Mentally though, Gohan had already told himself that what he'd just seen - it wasn't so bad. It wasn't like he'd actually known the girl or anything. She'd just been part of the background noise of school life. He hadn't ever really even noticed her before. So it wasn't like he would miss her. Heck, he didn't even know her name.

"Videl." Chaozu spoke up from where he was levitating, "Her name was Videl."

Gohan scowled sideways without turning his head or slowing the pace of his walk. "You're not helping."

"Trying to forget isn't helping either." Chaozu pointed out. "You can't deal with things if you're ignoring them." After a pause he added, "Where are we going?"

This brought Gohan to a complete stop. "You're psychic!"

"Yes. Where are we going?"

Gohan tilted his head to one side and squinted distrustfully at the smaller warrior. "You read my mind less than a minute ago." He said accusingly. "You KNOW where-"

Chaozu interrupted him. "Telepathy and precognition aren't the same thing."

"Huh?"

"Your brain and the future are two mostly separate things. So it takes different skills to read each of them. I know what you're thinking but I don't know where we're going." Chaozu clarified, carefully leaving out the bit about not being too sure what the future held anymore. "You don't seem to have decided where we're going yet. That's why I asked."

"But... You're psychic!" Gohan couldn't think of anything better to say at the moment. "Even if I don't know, don't you just... KNOW...?"

Now Chaozu sounded hurt. "What - do you think that just because someone is psychic, they're ALL the DIFFERENT KINDS of psychic? Surely you can't believe that! That's like saying that all martial arts are the same! Nothing could be further from the truth."

Gohan hadn't ever given much thought to the issue of psychic sub-categories because it wasn't something that interested him. He found himself trying to make polite excuses anyway. "Oh. Right. I mean... Of course. That makes sense. I hadn't thought of it that way." Gohan shrugged as he resumed walking. "And I'm not sure where we're going."

He didn't want to go anywhere specifically but he didn't want to stand still either. Gohan felt like he ought to be a moving target. That's what he was, after all, because the other android was still out there and it could track his energy and...

Where can we get more capsules? Almost as soon as he'd thought the question, Gohan knew the answer. Capsule Corp!

Seconds later an arc of golden energy departed Satan City, heading west. It was accompanied by the sound of one small voice saying that he was perfectly capable of flying on his own.

Dr. and Mrs. Briefs were the types of people that left their doors unlocked. They had never invested in electrical fences or hidden cameras or other security devices for their home. They were rich. So the Briefs didn't mind too greatly if people robbed them because they could afford to replace pretty much anything that was stolen. The handful of possessions which the Briefs kept in a hidden vault were the sorts of things that had significantly more sentimental value than market value.

Despite the complete lack of security measures, Capsule Corporation had never been robbed. The famous mansion had been blacklisted by every criminal organization on the planet. Professional assassins wouldn't go near the place. Thieves and mercenaries wouldn't even consider setting foot on the estate.

If asked, the criminals would tell their employers that the Capsule Corp mansion didn't have much worth stealing. Which was true. The furniture in the Capsule Corp mansion wasn't antique, the paintings on the walls weren't done by famous artists and there weren't piles of cash laying around. Any money that hadn't been invested into stocks or projects was kept in bank accounts. Truly, the most valuable things in the whole mansion - aside from the people who lived there - were the random sketches that Mrs. Briefs did and Dr. Briefs was about the only person on Earth who could make enough sense of those to build what she designed.

The story that the criminals told each other about Capsule Corp was significantly different. A monster protected Capsule Corp, they said. A terrible souless creature. Any stranger that tried to enter the house without being invited in by one of the Briefs would soon be wishing that they'd never been born. The criminals swore it up and down, on every oath they had. They described the monster as being a giant hideous creature whose most notable traits were multiple sharp fangs and claws.

Even Tao Pai Pai, back when he'd been the Worlds Greatest Assassin, had sworn that he'd sooner commit suicide than go near Capsule Corp.

A ninja arrived at the mansion, slinking through the shadows and muttering that those drunken idiots at the guild weren't fooling anyone. He'd heard the story of the monster but all he believed about it was that his peers were trying to scare him so that they could keep the loot for themselves.

The back door was wide open. The ninja hesitated. He could just walk in but somehow, using the door didn't seem appropriate. No self-respecting ninja would use the door. The door was too obvious.

"Meeeeeeoooooow?" A tiny black kitten sat in the doorway. From the bottom of its paws to the tips of its ears, it couldn't have been much more than four inches tall.

The ninja did his best not to laugh. "So this is the famous monster!"

Unfortunately for him, it was.

Nearly four hundred or so years before the 'cat' had become a part of the Briefs family, it had been Uranai Babas pet and she'd had the best defended dorm room in the entire Lunar University. Summoning the creature from the underworld had been quite a hazardous undertaking on its own. She'd had to traipse halfway around the globe just to collect the necessary artifacts for the complex spell. Making the monster loyal and disguising it as a small harmless kitten had been additional challenges. But it had all been worth it in the end. Her efforts had paid off. She'd earned the respect of her peers as well as her doctorate degree in Mystic Arts.

Black cats in general had become something of a fashion statement among witches after that. An essential magical accessory. All the trendy modern witches had a black cat or two - for luck they said, bad or good. Because magic could deal with either. As long as you didn't go near Capsule Corp.

With a resounding thud Uranai Babas crystal ball impacted the ground. It had turned to solid stone. For a moment she hovered above it muttering curses then, with a soft whoosh, she also dropped from the sky. Her pointy black hat lingered in the air before drifting to the ground after her.

Magic wasn't stable around Capsule Corp. And it wasn't because of Capsule Corp either, it was because of what Capsule Corp was sitting both on top and inside of.

"RREOW!" Hissed a tiny bundle of bristling black fur.

"It's ME ya mangy fleabag!" Uranai Baba smacked the cat away as she stood up. She was uninjured despite having fallen and this was largely because she'd managed to land on something much softer than the ground.

What was left of the ninja made a few choked gurgling noises. Uranai Baba blanched at the sight, stepped down and paused to wipe her feet off on the grass. Days like this she would think that perhaps she should have summoned a wyvern or a trollbat or anything but the underworlds equivalent of a piranha. The Briefs were such self-absorbed people - they hadn't noticed that their cat had aggressive carnivorous tendancies yet but it was bound to happen eventually. And then what would protect the gate?

"Stupid monster." Uranai Baba grumbled, reaching for her hat. She shook some dust off the fabric before replacing the hat on her head and pulling the brim down at an angle so that it covered her eyes without impairing her vision. She turned left then right, scanning the ground. "All right, where is... Aha!"

She lifted the ninjas feet and heaved a concrete sphere - that, from the looks of things, the ninja had tripped on - out from under them. She frowned at the remains of the ninja then inspected her own hands. She wasn't aging, the anti-age spells hadn't worn off. And then there was the cat, it still LOOKED like a cat so logically... Uranai Baba closed her eyes, concentrated and mumbled a few things under her breath.

When she opened her eyes again, there was a small plastic action figure laying where the ninja had been. Baba grimaced. That wasn't what she'd been trying to do. "Better than nothing I suppose." She told no one in particular.

After a moments consideration Uranai Baba pocketed the ninja action figure. Even in variable magic fields, things happened for a reason. Who knew - maybe the toy would come in handy later. Better safe than sorry. Uranai Baba turned and began to walk the remaining distance to Capsule Corp. She rolled her currently-not-so-crystal ball ahead of her and was followed at a cautious distance by a monster disguised as a small black cat.

HMMMMM.

"AAAAAHHHH!" Screamed the ghost of the ninja who had recently suffered a fatal encounter with the Briefs Cat. He pointed. "A CAT!"

WHY SHOULD DEATH BE...

"STAY AWAY! STAY AWAY FROM ME!" With true ninja speed, the ghost began to flee. "AAAAHHHH!"

Korin arced an eyebrow and watched the ghost run - or rather, float - away. He shook his head. Humanoids. He thought wearily even as an amused grin crept across his face. Only something humanoid would try to outrun Death.

It wasn't fair. Such an odd thought for someone in hell and yet such a very appropriate thought. Hell was meant to be fair. If you spent your life doing severely evil things to others then when you died, you went to hell and had severely evil things done to you. It was the old 'an eye for eye', 'what goes around comes around' and all that. Very fair. Or at least, the original design had been.

The problem with life was that, especially when compared to death, it was short. So in the end evil people who'd only lived for say, thirty-five years, might be sentenced to spend eternity being punished. Which really wasn't fair, no matter what the delegates of heaven said.

Of course that was the other main problem with hell - heaven tried to be in charge of it.

Prince Vegeta had been in hell for a day. A day that felt roughly like ten years. Ten very bad years. How had those stupid robots killed him anyway? It didn't make any sense! And why hadn't anyone wished him back to life yet? Earth might have been a miserable pointless existence but it was infinately better than being on the receiving end of the Saiyan Armys temper.

Which was where he was now. Vegeta had tried to explain that the Earthlings had cut his tail off in battle a long time ago and that he didn't know why the stupid limb had failed to regrow. While alive he'd been in regeneration tanks, he'd eaten senzu beans, he'd even let that one Namekian kid heal him - but his tail had never come back.

And the Saiyan language. Oh Vegeta knew more than enough of the Saiyan language - if you paused to consider that he hadn't had any reason to use his native language for the past five years. There certainly hadn't been anyone on Earth to speak the language to. So he'd gotten out of practice. Not that Saiyan elite were meant to be talkative anyway. Plus there was the fact that the Saiyan language was ancient and consequently, outdated. There wasn't a true Saiyan word for 'computer' - that word, along with most of Saiyan technology, had been borrowed from other cultures. There weren't Saiyan words for a quarter of the things that Earthlings had words for. Why bother to speak Saiyan if you couldn't say what you needed to?

Vegeta had tried to explain all of this. But nobody had been in the mood to listen. So they'd disowned him. His own parents had declared him an outsider and a weakling. And that made it okay for the entire Saiyan Army to take turns beating him senseless.

Even as a Super Saiyan, Vegeta hadn't stood a chance. He'd spent the last twenty-four hours curled in ball, trying to cheer himself up with the thought that he still had Saiyan genetics and he couldn't die in hell - and that meant he had get stronger eventually. Hopefully. It was going to take a few hundred more near-deaths before he could take on even a fraction of the Army by himself though.

There was one other coherant thought left in Vegetas brain at this point and it was: Maybe I shouldn't have killed Nappa.

He hadn't been able to see clearly for what felt like eons but Vegeta knew that somewhere on the other end of the countless attacks that battered his form, Nappa was grinning. Because Nappa was the Commanding General of the Saiyan Army. The title hadn't meant much when Nappa had outlived most of his soldiers but now that he'd been reunited with the warriors under his command, Nappa was a formidable enemy once more. And a political enemy as well. Vegeta didn't doubt that Nappa'd had a role in convincing the rest of the elite to disown their Prince.

Due to having been numb - inside and out - for hours, it took Vegeta a few stunned moments to realize that the attacks had stopped. What was left of his vision and ki detection abilities stubbornly refused to come out of hibernation but, abruptly, his hearing was working just fine.

The jeers and insults that had been directed at him were now replaced by an anxious, hostile growl. Shrill laughter and then... Deafening explosions. Warcries. The rumble of thousands of angry warriors charging through the air.

Over all the noise, Vegeta heard two hushed voices approach.

"Since when are you evil, Green One?"

"What's so evil about raising hell?"

The first speaker laughed weakly. "Uhm. You don't mean literally raising hell, right?"

"It's not a bad idea."

Vegeta winced as he was lifted. He would have protested it if he'd had the strength to. Being carried was not going to help his pride at all and it wasn't going to settle well with his broken bones either.

"You can beat up the Saiyan Army later." Someone told Vegeta cheerfully, "After Freezia and his clan are done with them." Then the voice continued in a serious tone that seemed to be directed more at the person carrying Vegeta and less at Vegeta himself. "Come on, we'll have to make use of the distraction while we can."

Bardock hesitated then swore under his breath and followed, mumbling. "Why weren't our gods more like that one?"