"Asterion's Heaven"

By Son Rhandi

Chapter 6: "The Big Water Your Soul Must Tread"

The march to the land called The Gripless began early the next day, or at least, as well as any of them could tell, Hell lacking a sun or a moon or even an information line for them to call for the time. Days of traveling ahead of them, Captain Ginyu advised his men to give themselves a good stretch and join him in a good morning pose facing east, toward an imaginary sunrise (an explanation thereafter did little to jog Jeice's memory).

"So what's the deal, Cap? What's with you all hoppin' around Hell and so forth? Goin' treasure huntin'?"

Ginyu shook out his map, not bothering to turn to Jeice. "We're hunting for the last member of our merry band. You know him well. Or you will, as soon as you remember." His brow furrowed. "And knock it off with that 'Cap' stuff. You will address me as Captain Ginyu."

"Oop! No disrespect, Cap—er, Captain Ginyu," Jeice held up his hands in a non-threatening gesture. "Then, will ya gimme the straight dope? You really a Brench moon tribesman?"

"Yeeup."

"So like, what's your story, eh?" He rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean, like, you clearly don't look like you're from Brench or its moon, but yer wearin' an officer's duds! Hell, you even got yourself a captain's sword!"

"As you've mentioned." Ginyu grew more and more irritated. Sighing, he folded his map and tucked it safely in its breastplate home."Let's just say, I outgrew my old Brenchian body several years ago, and upgraded to a few classier models since then."

"Upgraded?" Jeice drew a finger to his bottom lip. "...Are... Are you a robot?"

"Nooooooooo, stupid!" The captain flung up his arms, exasperated. Jeice was never the brightest bulb, but with his memories gone, and his mouth flapping constantly, Ginyu was finding him overwhelmingly difficult to tolerate.

"Captain Ginyu's got a crazy cool trick that let's him swap bodies with anyone with bad-enough luck to get snagged by 'im," Guldo piped up, proud that he could have the opportunity to show what he knew. Jeice gaped.

"No way, you gotta be puttin' me on..." He turned squarely to Ginyu. "Ok, if you're really a tribesman, prove it! What's the first rule of the third tribe of Brench's moon?"

"A warrior is always fair." Ginyu snorted. "That's the base of the basics right there. Gonna have to do better than that."

Jeice nodded in approval. "All right, all right, then here's a toughie: What's your duty to do every afternoon?"

"Pfft, gimme a break... It's every tribesman's duty to fortify himself after the trials of the day and prepare for that which comes out at dusk by having the sacred afternoon snack."

"Ye, gods, man, your wording! It's like you memorized the entire 'How to Be a Pretty Swell Tribesman' handbook!"

"Memorized? Ha! I helped proofread the thing!" A blatant lie, but suited to a Ginyu boast.

"Ok, ok, now here's the real test. What's name of your clan?"

Ginyu regarded him thoughtfully. "...Yours first, cousin."

"Wah-hey!" He clapped his hands in excitement. "That's a Brench moon tribesman's way of doing things, all right!" Jeice extended his right hand to Ginyu, his palm turned upward. Ginyu smirked and extended his own, coming down on Jeice's hand with a firm grip. He them made a fist of his left hand and bumped Jeice's shoulder, the red man returning the favor with a fist bump of his own.

"Traditional greeting seals the deal," Jeice nodded, smiling and satisfied. "My clan is called Alastor."

"And mine is called Asterion."

"Now there's the name of a member of the third tribe if I've ever heard one!" Jeice laughed heartily.

"Hey, Cap, I'm a little confused," Recoome chimed in, scratching his head. ("No kidding..." Ginyu muttered.) "You guys are from the same tribe, right? So how come you don't sound nothin' alike?"

Ginyu drew a hand to his chin. "Hmm... Clan Alastor.. That's one that emigrated from the Brench homeworld, right?"

The Red Magma pumped his fist in excitement. "Right you are, Captain Ginyu! You know your history, you do!"

"Then, there you are." He waved his hand. "My clan, among others, emigrated to our moon ages ago, but older clans from the homeworld that emigrated much later retained their rather... unique accents..." He paused to clear his throat. "Our tribes are... were very much fluid, really only distinguished by the coat of arms we bore."

"Ah, thanks for clearin' that up, Cap," Recoome nodded in understanding.

"Oi, wait a sec! How come Big Red gets to call you Cap, but I don't?" Jeice huffed.

Ginyu sniffed. "He's earned the right. You'll earn yours back along with your memories."

"And while we're on the subject..." Recoome stuck a meaty finger to Jeice's brow and nudged. "You ain't quite yet earned the right to give me a nickname. My name is Recoome. Remember it."

"Awright, ease up, ease up..." He pushed the behemoth's hand away. "And what's this about memories an' all? You sayin' I got a touch of the amnesia or somethin'?"

"I guess you could say that." Ginyu crossed his arms. "Recoome and Guldo both needed their memories jogged before they could come back into the fold. Let's hope your own return just as quickly."

"Yeah, really," said the toady in a chuckle. "It won't do for the second-in-command of the Ginyu Force to not even know his position."

"Whaaa?" Jeice pointed to himself. "Me? Second-in-command of the Ginyu Force? Ain't that a kick in the head?" He bore a toothy grin. "So am I like, the vice president of the dance troupe or something?"

Ginyu drew his lips into a bloodless line, and the veins on his brow throbbed.

"Er, Captain, why don't we get airborne?" Recoome suggested, wearing a nervous smile. "We ain't gonna find Burter fielding Jeice's questions, right?"

The captain exhaled sharply through his nose. "Yeah, let's... let's go." He gestured to the others to follow him. "Movin' out."

Ginyu, Recoome and Guldo leaped skyward, ascending steadily .

"Woooooooooooooooah! How in the hell didja learn to fly?"

They all stop in mid-air. Jeice didn't know they could fly. Jeice didn't know he could fly. Even if he did know, there was no way his body would be able to fly under its own power at that stage of his restoration. Ginyu place a hand over his eyes and sighed deeply. "Recoome, go get 'im."

The behemoth blinked. "What, I gotta carry 'im all the way through?"

"Well, how the hell else is he gonna be able to come along? You feel like walking for days on end again?" He growled.

"...All right." Hiding well his irritation, Recoome descended back to their temporary headquarters, kneeling in front of Jeice and gesturing to his back. "Take that armor off and hop on," he said curtly. "The less you weigh, the easier it'll be for me."

The Red Magma scratched his head but saw no reason not to argue. Shifting his shoulders, he slipped his armor over his head and discarded it carelessly behind him, then scrambled onto Recoome's back, making a ring of his arms around the behemoth's thick neck. "Ha, talk about your spacious seating."

Recoome snorted. "Be quiet or I'll drop you."

"Oof. Fair enough..." Jeice shrunk. Settling in for a long flight, he tightened his ring as Recoome rejoined the others in the sky.

Their journey to the border of the Grey Frontier was... mind-numbingly long, as it came to eventually dawn on them. Days upon days of flying (and footing it when their energies ran low) had passed, but still no end to the region in sight. Having reached their current shot for the day, they descended, setting up camp in a patch of land littered with boulders.

Ginyu stretched his back and arms, then rotated his shoulders and noisily cracked his neck. Another day's journey was at an end, and he was once again feeling his body's age, whatever it happened to be.

"All right, everybody off." Recoome shifted his back in a gesture for Jeice to remove himself from his person. The red one awoke with a snort, then sleepily slid from the behemoth's back.

"Oi..." Jeice began, rubbing the log from his eye. "Cap'n Ginyu, how much longer 'til we get to where we're goin', eh?"

"My thoughts exactly," said Guldo in a frump, none too happy about their voyage along the boring trail. "It feels like we've been going for weeks and we're still no closer to this Gripless place than we were when we started!"

"Well, I question that," began Recoome's retort. "Seein' as we'd have to be, like, traveling in a perfect circle this entire time, y'know? And by the same logic, the Gripless would have to be the radius of said circle. Somehow, I don't think that's the case." It was said so casually and yet, with such earnest that everyone within earshot felt humbled, if only for their comparatively poor understanding of basic geometry.

"In other words, quit yer exaggeratin'." Ginyu sighed, removing his boots and wiggling thick, lavender piggies. "And stop thinkin' so hard, Recoome. Sheesh..."

"Foooooor serious." Jeice lazily dragged his feet to a smaller boulder close to Ginyu, splaying atop it like some sort of ridiculous-looking cat. Even straight out of an extended nap, the amnesic Jeice was still ready to run his mouth. "So, hey, guys. Who's this other buddy of yours that I'm supposed to know so well?"

"That'd be ol' Burter," Recoome sauntered up to a rock of his own. "He's a huge, blue lizard-lookin' guy. Bigger 'an me, even." He raised his hand ye high above his head to illustrate his point. "He's your big, blue buddypal, all right. You guys even had your own routine goin'."

"'ey, don't forget, ol' Burterball is the fastest in the universe, too!" Guldo waddled to a reasonably-sized boulder for his height, but even then, still struggled to reach the top. "Za-whoosh! There and back before you can say 'space soda,' ha!"

"Strange as it sounds..." The Red Magma scratched his head. "I'd be lyin' if I said the ol' gears upstairs weren't turnin'."

"Oh ho?" Now Ginyu was paying attention. "Then surely the super-stylish, crazy cool attack, the Purple Spiral Flash would mean something to you?"

"It... might?"

"Damn right, it might! Picture it!" Ginyu wrapped a callused hand around Jeice's shoulder, painting a picture in the air with his hand. "Your energy's risin', you're swathed in a red aura—a blazin' fire of an aura! Your buddypal, Burter, he's in your sight, chargin' up a blue aura—never was there a truer shade of blue in all the universe! You're in sync, and your powers have peaked! The two of you charge toward one another, and your auras crash and combine, a brilliant purple. No, the most perfect of purples! There ain't a hexcode in existence what could pin that color down!"

Jeice looked up at him, totally enthralled. To have such an intense look in those hunter green eyes... That's it, he was getting through! "But that isn't even the half of it, no," Ginyu continued, confident in his own words. "That perfect purple energy? It starts to spiral, like some kind of beauteous mini-galaxy that runs on style and stardust. Whirlin' and twirlin' and then... SHOOM! Energy discs blazin' out like shooting stars! KA-BLAM! KA-POW! KA-BLOOEY!" The captain threw a fist for every sound effect. "Man, when you two got together, the enemy didn't have a prayer!"

"...I think I'm remembering. but I... It's fuzzy..." Jeice brought his hand to his head once more, really struggling to call forth his memories. Somehow, it was all vaguely familiar, and if he thought his hardest, he could make out a towering silhouette in his mind's eye.

"No good, huh?" Ginyu appeared a bit crestfallen. He was particularly proud of his performance.

"Sorry, Captain," he responded, picking up a bit on his leader's disappointment.

He dismissed the apology with a wave. "Don't worry about it. In due time, Jeice." Though, things would be a heck of a lot easier if you could just get your memories back, that's for sure. He sighed internally. Returning to his boulder and drawing a knee up to his chest, the Captain looked to the horizon. Far, far into the distance, he could make out the faintest of silhouettes lining the plane where the earth met the sky. He sniffed, small mountains, nothing he hadn't seen before. He squinted, eyes following the river snaking ahead. At its horizon point, he could swear there were peaks framing the river there... Twin peaks... Huge ones... His eyes widened. "Waitaminnit... Wait a minute... Wait. A. Minute."

The other Force members turned to their leader quizzically as he hurriedly pulled out his map and unfolded it, laying it flat on the boulder that was previously his seat. Ginyu trailed a thick finger along the river mark. "AHA!" He poked excitedly. "We're close! We're stupidly close!" He gestured for the others to gather around. "Y'see the twin peaks here?" Captain Ginyu pointed to the mountains depicted on either side of the river. "I saw 'em on the horizon. We can't be more than a day's travel to the frontier border!"

They all cheered at that. "So then, what the heck are we waitin' for?" Jeice jumped up, raring to go. "Let's get there already!"

"Now hold your space broncos there, Jeice," Ginyu began. "There's no sense in us overdoin' it right now. The frontier border will be there tomorrow. Or later today. Or whatever time it'll be when we start up again." He ended on a shrug.

"Yeah, Captain Ginyu is right," Recoome chimed in. "And anyway, tomorrow is only a day away, right?"

Ginyu let out a groan.

And so, what they agreed was the next day came, and fully rested, the quartet set off once again, an aura of excitement surrounding them. They arrived to the twin peaks framing the Snake River—they named it on the way—in roughly 20 hours. The group touched down at the river's edge, the sound of rolling water filling their ears. Ginyu felt no shame as he grinned ear to ear. Finally, they had reached the end of the Grey Frontier. Just beyond the river, just beyond the peaks, they would find the Gripless, and Burter somewhere within.

"Cap, why are we stoppin'?" Recoome asked, Jeice shifting behind him. "We can fly right in between the peaks and keep goin'."

"We'll get there, hang on," the Captain said, smiling. "Just lemme get oooooone last look at this piece-of-crap forever forest..." Expanding his chest and breathing deeply, Ginyu made fists of his hands and squared them on his hips. Red eyes rolled over the land that they had spend the last forever and a day traveling through. Peaceful as that melancholy land was, he wouldn't miss it, and the sooner they parted ways, the better.

Taking in a sharp breath, he raised his right hand in a farewell gesture. "Goodbye, shitty trees, shitty rocks, shitty grey everything!" He turned on his heel to face the river. "Snake River, you were pretty all right, actually!" Another sharp heel turn brought him to face his men. "All right, boys, you ready to take the plunge into the Gripless?"

Their rallied cries filled the air. "Good men! Move out!"

The four took off like a shot. Flying parallel to the river, they could see Snake River turn into Snake Falls—the next logical name according to their conventions—as it dropped off sharply between the peaks. With Ginyu at the forefront, they flew beyond the edge, shocked at the sight before them.

"Wh... What! Where is it!"

Nothing.

There was nothing their but the off-white void of the sky.

Confused, Ginyu looked left, then right, then left again, then behind him. Ok, there was Snake Falls... and there were the twin peaks, and the smaller ranges they connected to... and if he set his gaze lower, he could see the rock wall propping the entire landmass up, continuing lower and lower until he could see no further.

"Men..." He began, his brow furrowed. "I think... we're going to need to do a bit of descending for the next leg of the journey."

"Hmm? You sure, Cap?" Jeice piped. "Wouldn't it make more sense to have a bit of a fly about to make sure it ain't like, across the way or somethin'?"

Ginyu shook his head. "Way I see it, the rock this forest is parked on isn't floating in mid-air, so it's gotta be sitting on top of something. We go down, we're sure to find land. I don't see much use in wasting our energy flying around this overcast mess and risking getting turned around at this point in the game."

He cast a glance to the water cascading far below, farther than he could see. "Ready for a bit of a free fall?"

"Ha! Ready as we'll ever be, I suppose! Eh, Recoome?" A gloved hand patted the behemoth's shoulder.

He rolled his eyes in response. "Yeah, well... What can we do except... accept?"

"Well, here's to hoping, I suppose!" Guldo chuckled, getting pretty used to this adventure stuff.

With that, they made their rapid descent, following the water rushing below.

They fell for what seemed like hours, hurtling through clouds, the rushing, cool air stinging their skins and screaming in their ears. Ginyu knew he had blacked out for a bit, grateful he hadn't woken up dead again (he wasn't even sure that was possible). Shaking his head, he turned his gaze downward. ...Misting below... Was that... the end of the waterfall? As his mind became more aware, he realized that they were quickly coming up on an entire pool of water—he didn't even know if it could rightly be called a pool, he couldn't even see where it ended—at breakneck, breakspine, breakbody speed. They had to act fast.

"Recoome-" He blinked. The behemoth had blacked out, as had Jeice, whose grip on him had been lost and was tumbling away from the group. Guldo, meanwhile, was responsible for his own tumbling act, but unconscious all the same. Acting quickly, Ginyu summoned up his energy and expanded it around him, acting as a reverse thruster of sorts. His own gravity acted upon, he zoomed to recover the far-off Jeice, unceremoniously grabbing him by the hair. Likewise, he managed to catch Guldo by a stumpy leg, and the returned to Recoome, stuffing toady in his singlet. The water was coming up so fast... Even with the waterfall acting on it, the surface tension would be enough to flatten them upon impact, he was sure. Desperate, he stuck out his hand, urging his energy to blast forth. "Come on! Come on!" He shouted. Everything they had gone through, it would all be in vain if they died again here. The Captain wasn't ready to give up just yet, though. If they had to die, they would die together, all five of them. Share victory, share defeat, and he wasn't prepared for defeat just yet.

A final roar, and hot white light shot forth from his hand, the pool below its target. The column of water that sprang up in a back splash overtook the four, but the attack was enough to sufficiently break the soul-killing tension, but not enough to avoid a less-than-jarring impact. Ginyu felt the slam through his entire body, causing him to lose his grip on Jeice in an instant. The current was so powerful, it tossed and turned him the whole way through, enough where he couldn't resurface. He felt panic begin to wash over him. It didn't matter that he, as a dead man, didn't need to breathe; it only mattered that he wanted to. He scarcely knew which way was up anymore. Darkness overcame him as the undertow carried him off to anywhere.

Red eyes were met with a beam of sunlight shining down on him, as it did on his patch of pond each morning, every morning. Froggy forelimbs rubbed the sleep out of froggy eyes as the start of a new day began. The nature house was already filled with the good morning croaks of his neighbors, and the rumbling roar-yawn of Dinosaur Jackson two habitats over (he afforded names to all of the animals there) would soon awaken the rest of the animals. He greeted his fellow amphibians in kind, sparing a ribbit to the rather pleasant and burly bullfrog—Recoome, Jr.—across the way, a polite puff of his throat to the colorful tree frog—Jeice the Second—perched on his branch, a croak to the rocket frog, already starting on his daily laps—Burter Mark II—and a curt nod for the rather disagreeable toad, once again lazing atop his favorite rock—Guldo the Sequel.

Giving the froggy equivalent of a sigh, Ginyu stretched his hind legs and gave his tail a bit of a wiggle. It would be breakfast time soon, the mustachioed gentleman always provided well for them. Sometimes, he would be rewarded with extra food if he did a little dance for him. Nothing as wonderful as a chocolate square, mind, but a big, fat cricket always satisfied his body, even if his mind was reeling.

He could have sworn he heard someone calling out. Was it Mr. Mustache announcing breakfast? It seemed a bit different, somehow...

...His head hurt.

"Mm...Mmrrrgh..."

Ginyu could feel the ground vibrate with approaching footsteps. His eyes slowly opened, his vision a blur and his ears feeling sufficiently clogged. He thought he heard voices, but the sounds were garbled, as though he was still underwater. His skin itched. What was he lying on? He felt a familiar grittiness as his hands planted themselves in the ground. Sand. Wet sand. He felt his upper arms being gently gripped, and a small weight on his back, and he was slowly being lifted.

His stomach didn't appreciate the movement, and he lurched forward, water spewing from his mouth and nose. He found himself placed back in the sand rather quickly. The captain gave a series of hoarse coughs, clearing out his lungs, and when they were sufficiently free of liquid, struck his ears with an open palm, clearing the water from his canals. Air rushed in and all the sounds it carried with it. Muuuuch better.

"Captain! You're ok!"

His vision was still a blur, but he didn't need it to know whose voice it was. "H... Hey, Jeice," said Ginyu, his voice strained from coughing. He slicked the remaining water from his face and blinked the rest of out his eyes. He slowly rose to stand, but his knees buckled and he fell forward, only to be caught by tree trunk arms. "Easy there, Cap."

Ginyu shook his head and grinned a little, feeling he should have expected this. He have the behemoth's arm a solid pat. "I'm all right, Recoome. A touch wobbly, but all right."

Not totally convinced, Recoome guided his captain further up the shore to where the others had made camp. Well, if a patch of sand with imprints from where soggy men had been sitting could be considered a camp... Four eyes blinked in their direction and their body stood to greet them. "Captain Ginyu!" Guldo smiled as genuinely as someone like him could. He gave them a bit of space as Recoome eased their leader back down to the sand. Ginyu felt stable enough to sit up, and did so with little trouble. "Well, good to know we all made it." He allowed himself a small chuckle.

"Mm. We all washed up here. Dunno how far we actually are from the waterfall, I'm afraid." Jeice shrugged. "We really lucked out, eh? I mean, what are the odds that we'd all come out of this no worse for wear?" He laughed a fool's laugh.

"Yeah, really..." Guldo chimed in. "Well, I guess we can assume we're in that Gripless place now?"

Ginyu blinked. Reaching a few fingers under his breastplate, he felt around for the map. He paused, only feeling his own sopping wet clothes. Becoming nervous, he pulled the plate away from his body. No map, not even Penny. Ginyu groaned and buried his face into his left palm. The map was gone, and so was the Life Pen. He was so close to finally having the whole gang restored, and now...

"Hey now, don't get upset, Captain. Here." A meaty hand clutched a damp map and the Life Pen, covered in water spots. "We figured we oughta let 'em dry." He smiled. "Got your sword, too." He held it in his opposite hand.

Ginyu stared back at him blankly, then dropped his shoulders and breathed a sigh of relief. "You guys..." He could help but laugh. The captain plucked the most important items from Recoome's paw first, tucking Penny safely under his breastplate and carefully handling the map, then reclaiming his sword, tying the scabbard securely to his belt. His eyes began to scan the map. He quickly found Snake River, and followed it with gaze until it expanded to form a huge inland sea (he considered naming it Great Drowning Lake, but abandoned it with a shudder). From there, the land took over, widening to form the great and vast Gripless, colored differently from the other regions. One look at the key made it clear—apart from Great Drowning Frog Lake (he shuddered; that was even worse), the entire region was, in fact, desert.

Ginyu's breath caught in his throat. Then, this is where I was... He looked around. A soul could be here for years and never find this place. That devil of a desert was just... so unbelievably vast... He hadn't even known there was an inland sea in this region before now. If he couldn't even locate a body of water as large as this one, what were the odds that he would be able to find Burter's soul? He felt a sinking in his gut.

"Yeah. ...Yeah, we're here, all right." Ginyu let out a heavy sigh. "But..." He threw up a hand in frustration. "I couldn't even begin to guess what part of the shore we happened to wash up on..."

"Weeeeell," Recoome began, scratching his head. "It oughta be pretty easy to figure out, right? I mean, we know there ain't but one waterfall what's makin' this huge lake, and there ain't no wind, neither. So like, we oughta be able to tell just by the direction of the ripples, right?"

"I don't know! Despite my rugged appearance, I'm not very outdoorsy! I'm even more unsure why this stuff always seems so common-sense to you!" The captain was just so tired from the entire ordeal that he really didn't have the patience to be made to feel like an idiot.

"Hey, don't worry about a thing, Cap. Hmm..." The behemoth strode along the lake shore, scanning the ripples in the water. He walked for several feet, then made his way skyward for a birds-eye view. He made his descent after a minute or two, returning to his teammates. "Captain, I think I got it. Can I borrow the map for a sec?"

Ginyu nodded, passing it onto him. The behemoth strode back to the shoreline, walking in a direction opposite the one he had started with. "So I wanna say..." He took a few more steps, then pointed north toward the inland sea. "That is the direction the waterfall is in. So according to the map..." beady eyes scrutinized the paper. "We oughta head this-a-way, if we wanna head to where Burt was last spotted." He swung his tree trunk arm and thick branch finger, pointing southwest.

"Well, it's certainly better than nothing." The horned devil rose to stand. "Let's move."

"Woah, now, Cap'n Ginyu," Jeice motioned in protest. "Y'sure ya got it in ya to start right back up again? It's better y'go at full-steam, innit?"

Ginyu sighed. He supposed even Jeice could say something reasonable every once in a while. "...You're right. I guess after all this crap, we're probably all pretty exhausted. But just to be sure we don't screw this up..."

The captain slowly lifted himself to his feet, and when he was confident in his stability, made his way to Recoome. "You say we should head that way?" He pointed southwest. The behemoth gave a slow nod of his heavy head.

Unsheathing his sword, Ginyu planted it in the sand, then laid his scabbard below it, pointed in the direction Recoome had indicated. "My sword's cutting edge faces the direction we'll be traveling in. As added insurance, in case we get a big wind between now and then or this lake turns out to have tides or whatever, so does my scabbard. The Gripless... I'm certain this is where my soul roamed up until all this went down." His brow furrowed. "It's a featureless desert, and if we get turned around before we reach the X, we'll never find Burter. I can promise you that."

The other three grew silent. They were, of course, very used to their leader's decrees, but there was a certain heaviness to his words this time, as though they all were aware of the gravity of this new situation. Exhaling sharply through his nose, Ginyu trudged back to his previous spot, dropping to sit. "Rest up while the day is easy," he said in a partial grumble, falling to lie on his back. "We definitely have our work cut out for us this time around."

Pudgy shoulders drooped and jowly cheeks parted in a sigh. "Nothing's ever easy, is it?" Guldo shook his head.

"Nothing in life or death, m'boy," Ginyu chuckled, not really able to do anything but laugh. Somehow, in that vast desert, they'd find their last teammate. Somehow, he'd earn all of them new lives, or be cast into non-existence trying.

Slipping into darkness once again, he slept a quiet sleep, dreaming the dreams of a frog.