Videl hadn't been kidding when he said they were taking the long way.

Two days had passed since that skirmish with Tao Pai Pai, two long days full of walking and now riding. Fortune had decided to bless the two as they fled and sent a carriage that just happened to be going in the direction they wanted to go. One money exchange later and Gohan and his companion were taking a load off their feet and letting two mangy-looking horses pull them all the way to Turtle lands. Unfortunately, that left Gohan with too much time on his hands and only boredom to fill it.

Oh, the first few hours had been alright considering the dark-haired youth had taken the opportunity to get some shut-eye. The seats were comfortable enough despite being made of wood. Any preconceived notion Gohan had of a well-furnished carriage died when he saw the plain wood insides from the walls to the seats. It was more like he was sitting on a moving bench than anything.

Still, the swaying motion of the carriage and the drop in adrenaline had made for a nice cocktail to put the youth to sleep and sleep he did. If the cab driver hadn't stopped to water his horses and grab some food, Gohan was sure he would've still been sleeping.

That had been the first day though. The second was proving to be harder to sleep and Gohan could feel his body begging to stretch itself out. Unfortunately, he wasn't one to stick his head outside of a moving carriage and ask for a pit stop. So in silence did he suffer.

Looking to Videl as he sat on the other side of the carriage, the youth found the lad propping an elbow against the wall, his head resting in his palm as he lazily stared at the slow-moving landscape an opening provided. Gohan supposed it was a window, though he wished there was some sort of curtain that could be put in front of it. He didn't want to be spotted after all.

Still, with Videl awake that led the dark-haired youth to consider some questions he wanted answered. Seeing as there was no escape for the bounty hunter in front of him, he decided to proceed with his inquiry. "Hey Videl?"

"Yeah?" Videl grunted out, his blue eyes lazily shifting over to him.

"I've been wondering about that Tao guy back there. You seemed to know him; what can you tell me about him?"

Videl gazed at him for awhile before he shifted in his seat, moving his head away from his hand, and straightening out his posture. "It's just like I said, Tao Pai Pai is a mercenary and a damn good one."

"And he would be after me why?" Gohan asked with a frown.

Videl rolled his eyes. "You have a bounty on your head, you know."

"I haven't forgotten," the young man huffed in annoyance. "But if this guy is such a good mercenary, then he wouldn't be after the bounty."

The bounty hunter shrugged his shoulders. "What does it matter then why he's after you? Regardless of the reason, he is and that is not a good thing."

"Because it doesn't make sense." Gohan rubbed his forehead as he felt himself growing frustrated by Videl's stonewalling. It was as if the guy didn't want to answer the questions. "I may not know a lot, but I do know the difference between a bounty hunter and a mercenary. A mercenary doesn't just go after people unless they've been hired, so this Tao Pee Pee guy has been hired by someone."

"It's Pai Pai," Videl corrected, his boredom evident in his voice. "And yeah, you're right that someone hired him, but he could've been hired by someone wanting the bounty. They just outsourced to him so that they don't have to get their hands dirty."

That seemed a little implausible to the youth. Mercenaries didn't work for peanuts, ya know. They were more likely to collect the bounty themselves than hand it over. "You also said he was a good one," Gohan pointed out, "So not just anyone could hire his services. So that means the person that hired him has money and a lot of it. So the person that hired him has no need for the bounty either."

Again, the bounty hunter shrugged his shoulders. "I guess."

And Videl was being no help. Gohan could feel his frustration mounting. Perhaps he needed to go at this from a different angle. "How did you recognize him?"

"Well, you just deduced that he's been hired by someone rich, so obviously he has a good reputation," Videl answered. "Everyone knows about him."

"I don't."

"That's because you don't have any memories. Believe me, if you heard of Tao Pai Pai, that's all you need to know because if you meet him that means you're as good as dead."

"And yet here we are after meeting him," Gohan retorted. This was met with Videl looking away, returning his gaze to the landscape. "Alright then, at least tell me about the first time you met him."

"What makes you think I met him before?"

Gohan could hear it in the lad's voice. There was a guarded tone in it and that made the youth know he was onto something. "When you saw him in the orchard, you turned as white as a bed sheet. That wasn't the look of someone recognizing him based off of reputation, that was someone recognizing him from experience."

Videl's eyes snapped over to Gohan and he knew he was right. For several moments, the bounty hunter was silent before he let out a loud sigh. "Alright, you got me. I ran into Tao once; it was not a good day for me."

"What happened?" Gohan asked curiously.

"You saw him in action," Videl deadpanned, "You tell me. Nothing good is involved with that man, make no mistake about it."

Gohan felt his shoulders sag. There was just no use in asking more about Tao Pai Pai. Videl clearly didn't want to talk about him and he was proving to be very stubborn about it. He was just going to have to table his inquiry until later.

And as it so happened, the carriage came to a stop then. Looking towards the window openings, Gohan could only see the boring grasslands and dirt road that had been around them for the last few hours. They had left the hill country a long time ago and were stuck in this endless expansive of tall grasses. There shouldn't have been any reason to stop in such a place and Gohan could feel his uneasiness grow.

Faintly, he heard two voices, one of which belonged to the cab driver and the other to some unknown person. Gohan couldn't hear much of the conversation as it was muffled, but it wasn't long before footsteps approached the door to the carriage. The hinges of the door squealed as the door opened and a young man with long blond hair climbed in.

Seeing as Videl wasn't making room for the man, Gohan immediately slid over, silently offering a seat. The blond man took the offered space and sat down comfortably.

That was when Gohan saw Videl sit up straight, his eyes glaring at the man. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

The dark-haired youth frowned at his companion. "That's not a nice thing to say."

Videl turned his head to look at him incredulously. "I'm not trying to be nice. Just look at this guy and you'll understand."

Letting his curiosity get the better of him, Gohan looked to the blond, the man turning his head to look back. The first thing that stuck out to the youth was the large nose that sat beneath a pair of black-rimmed glasses. There was also something funny about the black mustache, since it didn't match up the guy's blond hair. And now that he got a good look at him, his eyebrows were also black, though there appeared to be some blond hairs outlining the black.

"I don't understand," Gohan finally concluded.

Videl's jaw dropped upon hearing that. It took the jerking motion of the carriage to actually shake her out of her daze. "You've got to be kidding me!" he exclaimed before thrusting a hand out and pointing it at the mustached man. "That's Sharpner!"

"I am not!" the man cried out, sounding aghast. "I've never heard—" the blond stopped to cough before he began speaking again, his voice coming out deeper. "I've never heard of this Sharpner guy before, even though he sounds like an incredibly strong, incredibly handsome hero-type guy. My name is Sharp…Not-Sharpner. That's right; Not-Sharpner, even though I wished I had such a cool name as this Sharpner guy you speak of."

Gohan stared at Not-Sharpener before looking to Videl. "See, he's not Sharpner."

Not-Sharpner beamed at him as Videl slapped a hand to his face. "So where are you two going?" he asked eagerly. "You must have some place you're going to lie low…I mean, hide…I mean…visit."

Gohan was just about to answer when Videl interjected "We're just taking a ride, alright? It's not any of your business where we're going since you're stalking us."

The rudeness of which his companion spoke flabbergasted the youth. They had just met this guy after all and the lad was going out of his way to blow Not-Sharpner off. It just wasn't right. Giving Videl a reprimanding look, he attempted to apologize. "I'm sorry for my friend's attitude. He's in a cranky mood at the moment."

"So you'll tell me where you're going?"

Once more, Gohan was about to answer when he noticed Videl sitting across from him suddenly. With a hand, the bounty hunter grabbed the dark-haired youth's collar and forced him closer. "Don't say anything," Videl hissed. "This guy is after your bounty!"

The youth gave his friend an inquisitive look. "How do you know that? For all we know, he's just some guy traveling around."

"How many times do I have to tell you: you're the most wanted guy around. Everyone wants your bounty and you can't just tell anyone who you are, or where you're going. You never did that before." A pause. "In fact, you never acted this idiotic until you agreed to stay with me." A scowl appeared on the lad's face. "Are you just doing this to irritate me, or something?"

Gohan blinked his eyes as he allowed all of this to sink in. Videl was right, utterly and completely. He had been on some sort of dumb spell, doing anything that no smart person would do. With a sigh, he looked to Not-Sharpner and said, "Sorry, but I can't really tell you where we're going."

Not-Sharpner stared at him before he let out a dramatic sigh. "I was hoping you would make this easy for me, but now I see it must be done the hard way." Focusing on Gohan intently, he said "I apologize for this, but you see, my name is not Not-Sharpner."

Then with a flourish, the blond man reached off and took off his glasses, along with his nose, mustache, and eyebrows. "I am, in fact, Sharpner!"

Gohan's eyes widened. "You were disguised!"

As Sharpner preened from the exclamation, a loud slap occurred as Videl face-palmed himself loudly. "I'm surrounded by idiots."

That was ignored in favor of a different problem that appeared before Gohan. "But why would you disguise yourself? And then your name! Why didn't you have a better name? It's like you didn't think that far ahead." At this, Sharpner lowered his head slightly and coughed awkwardly. "I would think that if someone was claiming to be a hero, he would have thought of that. Something like this would only appear in a bad storyline to get a cheap laugh and nobody wants to read that."

A paranoid feeling suddenly descended on the carriages inhabitants. Slowly, they began to turn towards one of the walls, at least until Videl shot an arm out and grabbed Sharpner by his chin. "No. No, no, no, we are not doing some stupid fourth wall joke where we simultaneously turn and look at some imaginary readers that don't even exist," the bounty hunter growled. "You got that?"

That didn't stop Gohan from looking though, which caused him to frown. "Umm, which wall is the fourth one?" he asked befuddled. "There's four walls here and they all look the same. How do we know which one we're supposed to look at?"

"I was just following your lead," Sharpner admitted uncomfortably, his mouth opening and closing awkwardly due to a certain someone's hand holding it.

"It doesn't matter," Videl snapped. "We're not doing that joke and that's final. Are we clear?"

"Yes," the other two mean agreed reluctantly. With suspicious eyes, Videl looked from the dark-haired youth to the blond and back a few times before he was satisfied, releasing Sharpner's jaw soon after.

"Well, I thought it would've been good," Sharpner grumbled as he crossed his arms over his chest and began to pout.

"Don't want to hear it," Videl retorted.

That was when the carriage came to yet another stop. However, this one was different as they heard the cab driver scream and ran past the carriage, heading the other way. Startled, the three stared out the openings in the carriage, blinking their eyes as they wondered what was going on, or at least that's what Gohan thought the other two were doing. It wasn't always a good idea to assume what the others were doing, even if they had the same expressions on their faces as he did.

"I…wonder what that's about," the young man said out loud, earning him two agreeing head nods. However, none of them made a move to check out what had scared the cab driver.

"Well, go check it out Sharpner," Videl prodded.

"Me?" the blond exclaimed. "I ain't going out there!"

"But I thought you were a hero. Heroes always check out weird things."

The blond made to debate that point when he froze. Videl had him there. Yet, without much surprise, he continued to argue, "No, no, heroes always have disposable sidekicks to check things out." Looking to Gohan, he then ordered, "Sidekick, go check it out."

Feeling as if they weren't going anywhere, the youth grunted before he began to move towards the door. The only thing that stopped him from actually doing it was Videl's hand shooting out and grabbing him. "Oh no, need I remind you, he's your Arch Enemy. He's not your sidekick anymore so you have to go out there."

Sputtering noises came from Sharpner's mouth as he once again tried to argue. It took awhile before he could form something that resembled a sentence. "Can't we call a truce?"

"Are you still after Gohan's bounty?"

"Who the hell is Gohan?"

"I'm Gohan," Gohan said.

"Shut up, Arch Enemy, I wasn't talking to you."

Gohan felt himself glaring at the blond man. "You know what? I'll go out there and check out what's going on."

"No, you won't," Videl hissed at him. "Remember what I told you about doing moronic things? It wasn't that long ago."

"Someone has to go out there," the youth countered. "And if it has to be a hero that does it, then I guess I'll be that hero."

"Oh no, you don't!" Sharpner shouted, causing both dark-haired men to wince. "I'm the hero here! I'll be the one to do hero things!"

And despite this proclamation, Sharpner made no move to get out of the carriage. After awhile, Videl prodded, "Well?"

"I'm gonna do it, just give me a minute."

"GET OUT!" Videl roared, lunging at the blond. Kicking open the door to the carriage, the bounty hunter grabbed the annoying man and threw him out of it, slamming the door shut soon after. "Finally," the lad huffed as he resettled himself in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. Seeing nothing else for him to do, Gohan just leaned back on the bench and waited for Sharpner to come back.

As it turned out, he didn't have to wait. There were some shuffling noises coupled with some grumbling, obviously from Sharpner. He was probably getting back to his feet, which explained the other sounds. A frown soon appeared on the dark-haired youth's face when Sharpner went completely silent.

That's when he heard it. It was a low, kindly voice, or so Gohan thought it sounded. It wasn't much, but he could clearly hear what it said.

"Hi."

A loud girlish shriek soon followed.


To Zerolink100: Wrong story, dude lol.

To Guest: Kinda drawing a blank as to who you are lol. You know my name, but I don't know yours.

RyRy tested; MaMa approved