Disclaimer: I can style my hair DBZ style, and I can write about DBZ-ness, but I don't own the rights to Dragon Ball Z.

I've got nothing new :P.

Chapter 10: Old Enemy, New Threat

I signed up under the name of Nail, worried that Piccolo and Majunior would scare any spectators from the old days. It had been so long I probably didn't need to worry about it, but I didn't want to deal with it if I was wrong. The twins and Trunks argued with the official to let them into the adult tournament, but in the end they had to fight in the junior league. We parted ways at the lockers, where Christine and I were harassed for our colouring –one official asking if I was sick, and the other asking Christine if she was breathing okay. On our way to the prelims, we ran into the announcer from the old days. He knew we were the ones that defeated Cell, and was excited to see us in the tournament again. As we were leaving he called to me, "Hey, try to keep the ring intact this time."

"No promises," I replied.

"You destroyed the ring?" Christine asked.

"Yep, I was rather bent on killing Son at all costs - a ring and hundreds of human lives didn't mean anything to me back then."

"Wow, you did tell me you changed a lot, but- well after all you did for me, the prisoners and my planet I couldn't really believe it."

"You were imprisoned?" Gohan came into the conversation.

"Well, I sort of imprisoned myself. It's a long story, I'll tell you another time."

"Oh, have you been using the teleportation ability?" Goku asked.

"Yes and no, I modified it."

"Really? How?"

"I can lock onto unfamiliar chis now, even chi given off by planets, stars and suns."

"Cool! You'll have to show me sometime."

"I'm not sure if I can-"I was cut off by a throng of people crowding around someone and taking pictures.

"Aw man, I gotta be extra careful," Gohan said and pushed his sunglasses up his nose, "with all these cameras, if I mess up even once, my identity will be known everywhere in an instant."

I looked at all the cameras, "No problem," I used my powers to seek out every camera in the arena and destroyed them, "now you can fight freely."

Gohan grinned, "Oh! Thanks Piccolo that'll help a lot!"

As we passed the crowd I noted that the man they had all been trying to take pictures of was that Satan guy who had taken credit for Gohan's victory against Cell. I didn't say anything about it, but just kept heading for the prelims. When we got there it was already packed with contestants.

"Oh gee- this is going to take forever!" Kuririn exclaimed.

"There are a lot more contestants then before, fighting them for spots in the tournament will be very time consuming indeed," I sighed and growled a little.

"Will everyone please line up for their turn on the punch machine," a voice over a loudspeaker announced.

"Punch machine? That's new," I commented.

"Hey, I'm going to go find my friend, I'll catch up with you guys later, oh, and remember, no Super Saiyan," Gohan said and took off further down the line.

"No Super Saiyan?" I asked.

"Yeah, Gohan doesn't want everyone to connect us with the Cell Games and have the media after us," Kuririn explained.

"Hm, that goes for the little ones too?"

"Yeah, why?"

"We should tell Alucard not to go into his super state either, so it will be a fair fight, the arena couldn't hold a battle between them like that anyways," I said to Christine.

She nodded, "If you hold my spot I'll be back in a second."

I watched her walk over to a secluded section and felt her teleport away to where the kids were waiting.

"So uh- Piccolo," Kuririn elbowed me, "I didn't know you had it in you."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know –" he had a funny grin on his face, "your wife, and the kids hee hee, I'm even more shocked than when Goku showed up with a kid."

"Oh, that," I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. I saw Christine heading over again, which made Kuririn stop harassing me with his sexual innuendos. A man with a heavy grey cloak and an odd blue mask on his face bumped into Christine, grabbing her arm to prevent her from falling. Christine froze and stared at the person, a look of shock on her face. The figure lingered for a moment and then moved on. Christine watched him leave and then headed over, she was disturbed, worried, confused and a little afraid.

She just stood with us, her brow furrowed.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

Christine spoke in her native language, "I just – well, it can't be."

I changed to her language as well, "What can't be?"

"That man that bumped into me," she looked in his direction, but he was gone.

"What about him?"

"Well, I- I could have sworn it was Greyjia."

"What?! But-"

"That's impossible, I know, and yet…I could swear it was him."

"Hm, I couldn't tell what was going on when the fight was ending. I was only out for a moment or two, when I lost track Greyjia was there, and when I came to he wasn't. I figured he died in the blast."

"I know, so did I."

"Is there any way he could have escaped?"

"Well, apparently so, but," she but her lip.

"But you don't see how?"

"Exactly."

"Hey, what's wrong?" Goku asked, "is there a fighter here that's really strong or something."

I switched back to their language, "If it's whom we expect, then yes."

We were still a good deal away from the ridiculous machine so I left the line to follow after the masked man.

"What are you doing?" Christine asked.

"Confirming that it's him and seeing what he wants."

"What? Piccolo, don't - you're going to provoke him."

I turned and gave her a mischievous grin then kept going, "I'll be fine."

"Piccolo!"

I turned the corner and saw him further down, almost out of sight. I picked up my pace and pushed through the crowd. My target turned in between two buildings that were lined with vendors. I moved as fast as I could to follow him. When I turned the corner I saw a rather dark alley, and no sign of Greyjia, if it really was Greyjia. I paused for a moment and searched for his chi, I couldn't feel that either, he knew how to suppress it though so that didn't really mean much.

"Where are you Greyjia?"

Silence answered me. I stepped further into the alley, when I reached the center I heard what sounded like breathing.

"I know you're there," I spoke in Christine's language.

He replied this time, "Very good Piccolo."

"What do you want Greyjia?"

"Cutting right to the chase, how very typical of you. Christine would have asked how I survived."

"I don't care how you survived, I just want to know why you decided to suddenly pop up after all this time?"

He jumped down, his back to mine, "Defeat me in the ring and I'll let you know."

Greyjia suddenly disappeared, as if he melted into the darkness.

When I returned to the line I could tell Christine was angry and worried without having to use our link through the Heart's Twined.

"So was it who you thought it was?" Goku asked.

"Yes, it was."

Goku couldn't hide his excitement, "Really? So how strong is this guy? Will he give us a good fight?"

"He was strong although not a problem several years ago, but I', going to guess he's a lot stronger now, so he'll probably put up a good fight. He's after Christine and me though, and he won't stop until he gets what he wants."

"Who is he anyways?" Kuririn asked.

I glanced at Christine, she gave me the cold shoulder, but she explained our past interactions with Greyjia.

We reached the punch machine by the time she was done, so we all became quiet and took our turn. I tried to grab her hand to see if she was still mad at me. She crossed her arms over her chest in reaction and looked away from me, her lips pursed. I sighed, the next time we were alone I knew she would let me have it. We didn't argue often, but when we did, it always was very heated and it tended to be over things that never seemed that important later on. It was the downside of the relationship. Everyone always focuses on the happy, and carefree parts of marriage and dating, but there is an equal side of disagreements and fights, the trick is to make the upside better than the downside and to learn how to compromise. We both still struggled with the compromising part, after all we were both rather headstrong and set in our ways.

With the scores we got on the punch machine there really wasn't any question that we would qualify, but we had to wait for everyone to take their turn before they announced who would move on, so we decided to go watch the Junior tournament. We passed Gohan in line; he was with a girl about his age.

"Your friend is a girl?" Kuririn grinned.

Gohan blushed, "Yeah, uh this is Videl. Videl these are my friends."

The girl acknowledged us with a nod. The speaker system announced the start of the tournament, so we left Gohan and told him to meet up with us later.

The kids were starting off slow, none of them were going to fight each other for a while, and the earth kids weren't even close to a match. Christine left where we were watching into another room, her way of hinting it was time to get this argument over with. I followed. As usual when she was angry she spoke in a mixture of her language and the language we spoke here. I would always make sure I would speak only in her language since she was most comfortable with it, there was no point in adding to the frustration by adding a language barrier.

"What were you thinking!"

"Why are you so angry?"

"You were reckless! You just walked away!"

"So you're mad because I didn't listen to you?"

"No, I'm mad because I tell you I think Greyjia is back and you go charging after to ask him what he's up to-"

"You had a suspicion, s strong suspicion, but you didn't have certainty, I went and go that certainty! I didn't feel comfortable with the idea of possibly sending you into the ring with your father trying to kill you, or maybe not! I had to know for sure what we were up against!"

"I would have done that! I would have done that in my own way that didn't involve storming off after him like some half-cocked idiot!"

"Are you mad at me or are you mad are your father!"

"Wh- what?!"

"You're lashing out at me because you're mad and scared with your father! And you picked any little thing that I did in order to lash out, so before we keep going ask yourself where your anger is really directed at!"

I knew I shouldn't have said that the second it was out of my mouth, there was just something about her and her father that always got to me. Maybe it was just because it was the only part of her she would never let me help her and she constantly lashed out at me for.

Her face hardened, her nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed. She clenched her jaw and then suddenly yelled, "How can you say that?!"

She was going to go on, but Gohan and Videl suddenly came into the room.

"Oh, uh-" Gohan just stood there, not knowing what to do.

I told him without moving my eyes off Christine, "Everyone's outside."

"Uh, right," he took the hint and scurried outside with Videl.

Christine didn't continue what she was saying after the door shut. It was quiet, her eyes wandered over my face. Then she suddenly burst out crying. She tried not to sob and just hung her head and covered her face with her hands. I walked over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"I shouldn't have said that, I crossed the line," I said, I was never one big on apologies, but this time I felt I needed to, "I'm sorry, I know how hard anything with your father is for you, I just let my anger get to me."

"No, don't apologize, you did nothing you should apologize for, you just said the truth. I do lash out at you when my father's involved, and that's not right. It's just- it's so hard. My father made my life a living Hell, from day one. He never treated me like a daughter, or liked someone he cared about; I was an experiment, a tool and he took every advantage he could with me. I hated my life, myself, I hated every man I met I hated everything, until I met you. I tried to make my life happier, I tried to make connections and get away from him but you were the one who made it happened. You were the one who turned my world around, and whenever Greyjia comes in I feel like I have to separate you from it as much as possible because you're two different people and times and places in my life. I know it's impossible and stupid, but I worry that if I let the two worlds mix I might lose this one, this one that I love so much."

"It's not stupid. Greyjia is trying to take away all the things you enjoy now. He hates our kids, and us but he can hate us all he wants, because I know that we will never allow him to ruin our life. It's just not going to happen Christine."

She stared into my eyes for a while and then sighed, "Thank you."

"How bout we go and see what the kids are up to, and worry about Greyjia when we get to our tournament?"

She smiled, "I'd like that."

That's all for this chapter, the next one will be about the Junior Tournament.

Elieare