On we go! I had fun writing this chapter, though for a warning: there are a few rather gory parts so you have been warned. I focused on providing some more back story and reinforcing the foundation of some major plot points, and I'd say it will be another two, maybe three chapters before some real action will ensue. I like the pacing of the story so far and the stage is almost set ^_^

Also, since it's been pointed out a few times: don't worry, I know my source material =) I watched the anime and I've done my research, too; last chapter had never implied in any way that Goten was stronger than Piccolo. That would indeed be ridiculous, because while being half-Saiyan Goten and Trunks are still kids and neither of them would yet match up to Piccolo's strength. I think there might have been a misunderstanding of the paragraph in question (because admittedly, the sentence structure was a bit complex and perhaps not entirely correct, and while it all made perfect sense in my head it might not have been as clear to some readers, for which I apologize), so I went back and changed it up a little bit more to avoid confusing anybody else. In essence, what was meant was that while Piccolo was inferior in Goku in terms of power levels that disadvantage was being even out by Goten since the two of them have been teaming up.

Regarding the question of how much power Goku had been using while sparring, I'll leave it up to you. Personally, I'd imagine he was Super 2 when sparring with Piccolo and Goten. And yes, you're right, he almost went Super 3 when facing off against Piccolo and Gohan, I just didn't state it straight out because it was written from Piccolo's perspective and unlike us he yet has no idea about that form even existing.

And oh, you can bet that Goku's sparring match with Vegeta will most definitely happen (I have some nice plans for that one -laughs-) so you can look forward to that.

I'm also very happy that you liked the story, the chapter, the characters and the bit of Eighteen/Krillin in the beginning there, thank you very much for your comments! I'm delighted to know Lynn is in your good graces as well, introducing own characters is always a tricky task. Most fandoms are pretty scarred from the influx of Mary Sues and Gary Stues by now and are thus rightfully very mistrustful towards OCs -laughs-

So you're most welcome, I will continue to try and keep this fiction as mature as it seems to be.

I think that covers most of the guest reviews, everybody else should have received a PM by now =)

Thanks again for the support and appreciation to all of you, it's always a nice motivational push for me and my Muses! And now enjoy the next installment; off goes:

Chapter 9

Helping Hand

Nightmares were a frightful enemy, even to those who had faced down actual foes numerous times throughout their life. The problem lay within the concept of bad dreams itself; once you had defeated an adversary, they were gone, but the enemies in your mind could attack you again and again no matter how many times you'd prevail over them.

Vegeta's nightmares were usually blood and screams and darkness, faces of his victims thrown together with faces of his enemies, planets falling apart and bodies ground into dust. He didn't fear the dead and the dying, none of them but two. Even inside of his dreams, losing either his lover or his child was the one thing he couldn't bear to experience and if the emotion was this intense in an imaginative scenario he would never want to know what it might feel like in real life. The most terrible picture was to see them murdered by his very own hands, by his past self that cared nothing at all for anything and anybody, driven by anger and revenge. He knew he wasn't that person anymore, the one without attachments, the one without responsibilities, the one without bonds. Yet it was a stigma not easily thrown off, a mark that may have faded from his soul but its imprint would never be gone completely. Tonight he'd watched himself crush Bulma in the humongous palm of his Oozaru self and stand by impassively while Cell tore Trunks apart, not the boy's future self but that innocent, small child who was his to protect. He knew he would never let any of that happen, however in his nightmares he had no control over the movies playing on his mental cinema screen. If he was lucky he would wake up before the nefarious culmination of those cinematics.

He was rarely ever lucky.

Having awoken in the middle of the night with those horrific pictures stuck in his head, he couldn't even think about going back to sleep. So he got up and slipped into a shirt and a pair of pants, leaving Bulma with a kiss to her forehead and briefly looking in on Trunks before going downstairs. The Saiyan elite had a favorite spot in the house, a small recreation area in the far back of the ground floor. Half of that room wall was glass, presenting a view out into the yard and same view was that which he was looking out on right now, sitting on a small loveseat with his arms crossed in front of his steadily fluctuating chest. He watched the not yet quite full moon and the starlit firmament surrounding it, each of the sparkling dots representing a planet somewhere far, far, far away.

Very rarely, one of those lights would blink and extinguish its glow and he wondered what might have happened. Did it explode? Got destroyed? Vanished because of some other horrible reason? Had it been populated? Had another race been wiped from the face of the universe? Just the same, sometimes another dot would blink and light up. A newly born star; how many years, decades, centuries, millennia would it need to grow, evolve and perhaps bring up a new galactic species? What would it look like? How was it that a planet's destruction could happen within a mere minute, but the conception of one took billions of years, and yet the scale was still in balance?

Or maybe he had it all of wrong. He was neither a scientist, nor an astronomer nor any kind of specialist for anything except for fighting. And killing. That could be a science in itself, too...

Registering a familiar ki entering the room, he refocused his vision from the moon and the stars to the gorgeous little body that came to stand in front of him not that much later, clad in a black, knee-long satin robe, the slick material silky and cool against the skin of his arms which wrapped themselves around a slim waist the moment that slender figure sat down onto his lap.

Sometimes he was convinced that Bulma had some sort of sixth sense when it came to him, or perhaps that was simply how well she really knew and understood him. She didn't say anything, just weaved her arms around his neck and pillowed her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes and relaxing against him, simply... there. She was there and he was there; they were here, now, together. A real and solid fact that nobody could take away from him in this one moment, a real and solid fact that counteracted anything his nightmares might have shown him. It was all there was - him and her, and yet it was much more than could ever be expressed.

Lightly, Vegeta leaned his cheek against Bulma's smooth forehead, listening to her soft breaths, feeling the barely perceptible motion of her torso as it fluctuated with rhythmic in- and exhales within his firm, protective hold, the warmth that radiated off her and mingled with his own. The delicate fragrance that clung to her, the fragile life that coursed through her entire being. She fell asleep on him within mere minutes, and he sat there for a while longer, until his eyes ultimately found to a close as well, his consciousness slipping back into his dream world that would remain undisturbed for the rest of the night.

Nightmares were a frightful enemy, and the Saiyan prince was not the only one to fall victim to them tonight. All the way over at the house in the middle of the woods, his kinsman woke up to the feel of somebody being there. Or rather, something being... out of place, almost, because at night in your bedroom you had a certain atmosphere that didn't change much from day to day. So whenever there was a disruption in the usual, the habitual, the familiar; you perceived it even subconsciously, all the more so if you were somebody like Goku.

He opened his eyes and peered into the darkness, even though the moonlight was shining through the windows his sight needed a moment to adjust. The warmth behind him reassured him that Chichi was right there, snuggled up to his sturdy back with her slender arm draped across his abs. The disruption was right in front of him, standing at the bedside and it took him but a second to recognize the ki.

"Goten...?" Voice quiet and groggy, he reached up for the nightstand, hitting the switch of the small lamps installed above the headrest of their marriage bed. "What's wrong, champ?" Soft, yellow light spilled from above, pleasant on drowsy eyes as he stemmed his forearm to the mattress and propped himself up on it.

"Dad..."

He barely caught a glimpse at the tear-streaked countenance of his youngest before the boy lunged at him, snapping his arms around his neck and burying that face and its brokenhearted expression against the crook of his neck, crying.

"Hey. Hey, calm down." Pressing the tiny bundle of distress closer gingerly, Goku smoothed a hand over those unruly black spikes, feeling Chichi sit up in bed as well. She looked a bit dazed from the sudden awakening, but her inflection was wakeful and concerned as she intoned a worried question: "What happened?"

Good question indeed. "I don't know." He replied, focusing his attention on his son again, cooing to the young demi. "Shhh. It's okay, Goten. What is it?"

It took the little one a bit to calm down enough to be able to speak through his messy breaths and the uncontrollable, sporadic sobs. "You died...! In m-my dream just now, you died...! There was Raz, and J-Jion and h-he looked like a monster! They killed you!"

Wide eyes filled with salty moisture that rolled in tiny, brilliant droplets down reddened, cold cheeks drilled their aghast stare into him as Goten lifted his head, his voice cracking then and there.

"That won't happen t-though, right, dad? Nobody can kill you! You're the stron-ngest in the universe, you're invincible! Radditz and Cell only got you because you sacrificed yours-self for the planet! You won't do that again, will you? You won't die again! Promise me you won't die again!"

He had no time to respond or interject as more words poured out of that small, pressured chest not unlike those fearful tears were doing. "I'll train really-really hard and become so strong I will be able to kill any bad guy, and you won't have to sacrifice yourself anymore!"

Goten's small hands gripped tightly at the staunchness of his father's broad shoulders, defiant and desperate alike. "You can't die again, dad; I need you, you're mine!" His ki was flaring unstably, spiking almost to the yellow of a Super Saiyan here and there with the dogged determination and puerile selfishness of an offspring who could not bear to part from their parent because that was how much they loved and needed them in their lives.

Truth spoken with the voice of a child; Chichi's features softened with the heartfelt sympathy of a mother and the deep affection of a wife, watching her husband hold their frightened son close and whisper words of comfort and firm promises to the distraught boy, herself left with the faintest hint of a bittersweet smile on her lips. They did need him and he was theirs; she would have wanted to say the same if she'd known it was a vow she could keep, however she was a mere human with a bit of extraordinary strength. In a real fight, she could neither support Goku nor protect him, yet their sons... Their sons had that power, that potential. They had the possibilities to watch out for their father, to back him up, to make a difference in battle; a difference big enough for him to not have to offer his own life up for the sake of others ever again. They needed but the willpower for it, and she had seen it burning brightly in both of them, not unlike it was blazing in Goten's tear-filled eyes tonight.

"...no one will be dying anytime soon, you got me?" The quiet melody of Goku's light, masculine voice was underlined by resolute notes, carrying the firmness and security of that sincere sentiment. "Not me, not you, not anybody. Don't worry so much for your old man, it's not your time to be watching out for me just yet. I will take care of myself, I promise."

"You won't let anybody kill you...?" Goten uttered a question against the curvature of his father's shoulder and neck where he held his face hidden at again.

Goku's lips twitched a tiny smile, heart heavy with the string of guilt from causing his youngest so much grief. "No. No, I won't." He pressed a kiss to the top of those raven-black strands, feeling the tension melt away from the small, trustful existence in his arms, relieved to see his son calming down.

Reaching out a loving hand Chichi cupped her husband's cheek, enticing him to look at her and the affectionate expression on her pretty face, brushing her thumb against the handsome contour of his features. He was a wonderful man, and she loved him. In moments like these, she would realize it so very clearly again and anew.

"Dad...?" Goten sounded drowsy and exhausted, appearing entirely comfortable in his current position.

Extending his arm to hit the lights off, Goku responded with a gentle: "Yeah?" He was halfway able to guess what might come next and Chichi seemed to as well, already lifting the blanket up.

"Can I sleep here tonight...?"

The earth-raised Saiyan chuckled softly, twisting his torso to lay the boy down in the middle of the bed. "Sure, champ." He slipped into a lying position himself little later and Goten scooted closer immediately after, sighing in contentment and relaxation when his father's safeguarding arm settled around him protectively.

"Night, dad... Night, mom..." He mumbled, more asleep than awake, barely hearing the tender "Goodnight," from his mother and the quiet "Sleep tight," from his father.

Leaning over the precious, already dozing little being nestled between them, Chichi found her husband's lips to touch in a fond, prolonged kiss. "Night, love," she whispered upon parting again, hearing a gentle "Night, Chi," in reply as she settled back down on her side of the bed before wrapping a caring arm around their son as well. Tonight the little one would be well-sheltered and well-guarded against any evil visions in his dreams, enwrapped in the steadfast warmth of his parents as their anchoring presence would safely guide him through the remainder of the night.

Nightmares were a frightful enemy, and on this particular day there was another pair that would be affected by the horrors that could haunt your sleep. As it was, he really hadn't mean to do this. It had happened rather unintentionally; he had merely been sitting there with his eyes closed, listening to her breathe, mindful not to miss any disturbances in the even pace of her sound in- and exhales until he registered the spike of unrest from her, accompanied by soft sounds of distress. He'd gotten up and halted by the bedside, glancing at her pretty face, those gorgeous features framed by chestnut strands in an expression of torment. Easing back down onto the edge of the bed, he was near enough to reach out a hand and touch those silky wisps, shifting long fingers through them from the temple upward. And then, just like that, it happened. Just like that he had been pulled into her dream. Or rather, her nightmare.

Piccolo hadn't entered another person's mind in a long time, last time he'd done it was when Gohan was still a child and had been tortured by bad dreams after his father's death, induced by the burdens of guilt and the feeling of lack. He'd used to anchor Gohan throughout those dreadful dreams, helping the boy turn them for the better and make his nights easier to go through. But he had always done that with intention and on his own free will, he had never before been pulled into another person's subconsciousness involuntarily. Thus he was entirely and utterly astounded to suddenly find himself amidst Lynn's dream world, sharing it with her as she seemed to relive what first appeared to be actual memories.

She lay on the ground, clad in her flimsy lilac dress and with her hands chained up above her head. It was dark, chilly and clammy in the dungeon cell, and her heart was racing, beating somewhere in her throat as she heard the footsteps approaching the door. Tomorrow was her birthday. The day he had said he would make her ability his own, whatever that might have implied.

The key turned and he entered, accompanied by his lead scientist. She had always been scared of that man; the things he was said to be doing to his study objects were blood-curling and he looked the madman part, too.

"Well, I hope you're ready, little A. This is where our fun begins." She hated that pet name Jion had for her. The deprecating tone of his voice when he called her that, the mockery and superiority in the cold stare of his crimson eyes. She knew it was not his original eye color; he had stolen it as he had done with so many other things. It made him look more fearful and imperial, so he'd say.

She tried to scuttle away as they approached her, even though the chains wouldn't let her get far. A scared whimper fled her lips as they crouched to either side of her, the tip of an injection needle sparkling up in the stripe of light falling in from the open door.

"Now hold still please, would you." The doctor cooed to her, with sickeningly faked sweetness. Jion reached out to place a hand on her chest, holding her down with evident ease, also as she began trashing about due to the horrible pain piercing her midsection after the needle had been ruthlessly jammed into her stomach to the very hilt.

The pain was bad but the fear was worse. "What have you done to me?" She gasped, scrambling away into the corner of the cell once let go of, shaking from head to toe and hearing that behated, low, raspy, vile laugh. He didn't reply, letting the doctor give her a small explanation.

"Why, injected you with a special life form that will absorb your ability as it matures within you, of course. Once it is ready, we will extract it out of you; together with your powers."

So that was how... For a moment in time, the realization that struck her overclouded the ghastly fact she'd just been told. That was how he was becoming perpetually stronger and seemed to be able to do so many unusual things. He was stealing powers from others. Probably not only for himself but for his closest subordinates, too. Raz and Jagga and Horace... Now it made so much more sense, all those bizarre things they could do.

"Then I will consume it, making your nifty skills my own. Teleportation will come in more than handy on many an occasion, I imagine." The monarch of Jigessar supplemented with another dark laugh, his voice loud and derisive in its hollowed out baritone.

Lynn was petrified. A life form, maturing within her? Was there now something living... inside her? She felt abruptly nauseated and she wasn't sure if it was just her shocked imagination or a real perception as she felt tingling motion in her midsection. Please, please no. Sick. She felt so sick, doubling over but all that she managed was dry retching, having had no food for a good couple of days. They left and she was alone in the dark again, alone with... whatever it was that was maturing within her.

The perception alone was weird for her still virginal body as it tried to reject this wicked mockery of an immaculate conception. Spare for the occasional smacking and a whiplash as a form of punishment whenever something she'd done was unsatisfactory, there had been no other physical abuse from her owner or his subordinates. The noble folk of Jigessar would never engage in any kind of intercourse with a slave, even touching one except when absolutely necessary was considered a disgrace. There were enough low-class, native Jigessarians to exploit in that regard and gods knew Jion and his posse had enough concubines between them to use and abuse to their liking all day every day.

Appalled, she stared at her yet flat belly covered by the thin linen of her shabby dress, feeling tears begin to spill amply from her eyes, trickling in thick, moist trails across her face, the salty rivulets warm only for a moment before turning cold and chilly in their slide along her smooth skin.

Not even an hour passed before she recognized a bump developing on her midsection, the sensation absolutely horrendous as it grew bigger and bigger with every passing sixty-minutes cycle. The fear was mixing up with disgust and terror, making her head cloudy and herself nigh delusional from the realization that this... something... was beginning to move around within her, feeling it writhe inside her, right there underneath her skin. She felt weak and dizzy and ill in body and mind, not even noticing that underneath her breath, she'd been sobbing and chanting a never-ending mantra of desperate, pleading "Take it out... take it out... take it out..."

Please, just... Somebody... Take it out of her...

If in those moments she had known the means which her wish would eventually come true by, she might have not wished for it quite as fervently. She lost her consciousness eventually, after this... thing... being... creature... within her began pushing outward, as though trying to claw, rip, dig itself out through her abdominal walls, causing her to succumb to the pain and faint.

When she awoke again, she was blinded by garish lights right above her, cutting vilely into her sensitive eyes. She was still chained, only even more tightly this time, fastened by hands and feet atop a table. She jerked her wrists, but the bounds were iron and firm, impossible to break or escape for somebody as feeble as her. The pain in her stomach was gone, but she still felt the creature within her. Her dress had been pulled up to her chest, exposing the gross, lumpy disfiguration that was her midsection.

"Should we administer an anesthetic, my lord?" That was the doctor's voice, coming somewhere from the side, followed by the unsettling clanking of metal instruments. They wouldn't... He wouldn't... Not like this. Please, please not like this.

She heard that voice again, the one she loathed so, producing a sinister, cruel chuckle. "No. I would actually love to see her scream and squirm." Torture was one of his favorite pastimes. Yet she had never thought she would once be a victim of it.

The doctor's face meanwhile, scrunched up in a disgusting mask of sadistic glee. "Ah, yes. I do enjoy a nice vivisection once in a while."

Her blood froze in her veins and the air stilled in her chest, goose bumps covering her skin as a vicious chill seized her, forcing her bound body to start shaking again. He appeared at her side, gazing down at her defenseless figure splayed out before him, making it a point of demonstrating to her the scalpel he held in a professional, delicate grip between his gloved fingers.

"Don't worry, I will go extra slow, little bunny, I promise. Wouldn't want to cut too deep too fast and damage that precious, beautiful creature your filthy self is carrying within you, after all."

And then, he cut into her. The insanely sharp metal slid through the texture of her skin, flesh and muscle like sharp scissors sliced thin paper, parting the fibers and severing millions of tiny nerve tracts that composed her living body; he worked lightly and carefully like an artist carving upon a canvass, a macabre visionary with a razor. The pain was unimaginable, horrid and agonizing and bloody. She screamed, screamed at the top of her voice and the top of her lungs, every muscle spastic in sporadic spasms, causing her lithe little figure to cringe and arch and bend into impossible shapes atop the table but unable to escape the torment it was being put through. He was being slow indeed, lovingly tracing the long cut along her stomach over and over again to go but an inch deeper every time, making sure she felt the metal glide through parted flesh.

She cried and bled, cried and pleaded for him to stop, to have mercy, to please, please let it end. But it didn't. He wouldn't listen, and it didn't. No, it only got worse. Once the cuts were done his rubber-gloved hands slipped into them, she perceived him starting to push the flaps of skin asunder, revealing something glossy and squirmy beneath, not that she could really see, blinded by her tears and her pain. A sharp gasp and one more and another, and sweet merciful darkness engulfed her as she fainted into oblivion, all her thoughts and feelings hiding away into some small, tiny corner within her crippled, overburdened mind.

And then... nothing. Only utter silence and absolute darkness, until the abrupt sensation of hot-white pain sliced along her consciousness like an acanthaceous whip. Her lungs sucked in a large amount of oxygen and she snapped her eyes open. She didn't recognize where she was, there was green sky above her and blue grass beneath her and pain, pain, pain, pain, pain.

Her limbs were free again and her hands jerked upward, slapping down onto her belly and right into the hot, slick, thick mess of blood that was still seeping out of the surgical cuts there. She felt the edges of parted skin under her crimson-slicked palms and more horrendously... she felt the movement. It was still inside. It was still within her, right there, squirming about in her opened up abdomen. She was in a half-crazed, pain-overloaded delirium and it gave her the insane power with which she dug her fingers into the red, wet warmth of her own body, screaming and trashing and crying and yet clawing into herself deeper and deeper until she gripped that slippery thing and began to pull it out of herself.

Out, out, out, she just wanted it out. If she died during this, she didn't care, so long as it came out, out, out of her. She screamed and cried, screamed and cried and pulled and after what had seemed like a never-ending eternity in the deepest circles of hell, she yanked that... that creature, out of herself. She didn't cast a glance at what it was, flinging it to the side and away with all the madness-enhanced, adrenaline-pumped strength her abused, frenzied little body could muster. She heard a splash in the distance, suggesting that it must have landed in liquid. Hopefully, it would drown and sink to the bottom of whatever body of water it was now in, dead and lost forever and soon to be eaten by whatever creatures might inhabit this place, wherever she was.

Her blood-covered hands dropped away to either side of her, her breath erratic and shallow, her mind in a complete daze and her consciousness hanging by a thread, everything an indistinct blur in front of her unseeing, tear-filled eyes. The pool of crimson under her midsection kept growing, staining the blue of the grass and soaking into the soil beneath. She just wanted it to be over... Please, somebody, anybody... let this pain end. No more... No more...

She lay there bleeding out and with the last of life escaping her, when she realized there was a small frame approaching her with tiny, uncertain steps. The being looked like a child, but had green skin color and a pair of antennae on its otherwise bald head, dressed down in long robes. She had never seen a creature like this before... Nevertheless, with her mind once more near a this time likely fatal eclipse, she gathered up what little power she had left and lifted her hand, reaching for it with a whispered plea on her bloodied lips: "Help... me..."

The last image flashing before her eyes was that little green being kneeing beside her, and the warm, alleviating glow streaming from its hands as it held them over the mess of her stomach.

Everything around her swirled as the world of actual memories turned into a mangled nightmare, unreal and uncontrollable. She was in a dark place, impenetrable blackness all around her. The chains... they were back around her wrists and the glowing red eyes that suddenly were so impossibly close. She could feel his breath on her skin. No, no, no...

... this is where our fun begins...

She gasped in miserable throe, the knife that was thrust into her was almost too real of a gruesome sensation. She felt it being jerked higher, parting living flesh.

... I do enjoy a nice vivisection...

Blood pouring out of her as she chocked up some of it through helpless sobs, being gutted like a pig at a slaughter block she didn't even have the strength to struggle anymore. Just suffer through it.

... scream and squirm...

Stop. Stop, stop, please stop...

"Lynn. It's not real."

Her eyes, nigh blinded by tears, gazed up, seeing a spark of light in the darkness above her.

"It's not real, Lynn. You're okay; it's just a nightmare."

She knew that voice... The silhouette up above was painfully familiar in its tall, masculine shape, too. Parting her chafed lips, the words escaped in a broken whisper through the metallic taste of blood that filled her mouth. "Help me..." Please, please, somebody... Save her. Help her to escape these terrors.

"Reach for me. I'll get you out."

But she was bound and broken, and her tormentor's leaden presence would barely let her think straight. "I can't..." Sobbing, she still felt the knife as it kept mutilating her. How... how could she make it stop... "I can't..." Please, somebody... just show her how...

"You can. Just reach for me. Reach, Lynn."

She didn't know how or why her right hand was free again, but she did that which the urgent, guiding voice told her to do. She stretched her slender arm out, up towards that supportive presence, her fingers curling, reaching, trying to grasp for him, praying, hoping, begging...

Snapping her eyes open to the nightly darkness of the room she last remembered falling asleep in, she found herself in the careful but firm embrace of strong arms, her own wrapped tightly around a fair neck. Her breath was a sporadic mess, causing her chest to fluctuate erratically while the tears of terror kept pearling out of her widely opened, unseeing eyes, her slim shoulders jerking with sharp, jagged gasps for air.

"Easy... Easy. It's okay. You're okay."

The smoothly deep, soothing voice near her ear, she recognized immediately. Piccolo... He was sitting on the edge of the bed and she must have lunged upward in her mental and physical reach for him, now halfway in his lap with her tear-streaked face buried against the front of his broad shoulder. Shaking violently, it was so hard to calm down, causing her to clutch at him all the harder, desperate for comfort and protection.

"Easy. It's alright, Lynn. It's alright; you're safe." Trying to hush her distress, he wished he could have been able to interfere sooner.

However it was plain too hazardous to simply invade on the flow of a person's recollections when that which they dreamed through were actual memories, because the things they were seeing had already happened to them and were firmly saved in the depths of the mind. They were impossible to alter unless you wanted to risk messing up the individual's psyche entirely, forcing it to confuse real recollections with something that hadn't happened; screwing with legit, real memories was screwing with a person's head and the damage could be devastating. It was why he'd stayed away while her state of sleep was forcing her to relive past occurrences that had really happened to her; it had not been easy to just stand by and look on while she suffered in such overwhelming anguish, but thankfully a window of opportunity had presented itself the moment her mind started to warp the memories into an actual nightmare.

Subconsciously - and sometimes even consciously - when a person was having a nightmare, they already knew that the events happening weren't real, they were usually simply unable take control of their haywire going mind that would start blending real happenings into an imaginary horror scenario because of whatever emotions were prompting it - typically bottled up fear, anxiety, the darkest thoughts and emotions. It would start putting random pictures of past and present into a ghastly dream like pieces of a puzzle. That was the moment he was able to project an image of himself into the mess of it, at last able to reach out to her through the established mental link and help her take control of her nightmare, to change its flow and find a way out. And now he had her clinging to him, this vulnerable, terrified little bundle of agony, trembling severely and softly crying bitter tears into his chest.

He still had no idea how he had ended up inside her mind to begin with, it almost seemed as though it had simply sucked him in the moment he had touched her. That left him wondering if it was in some way connected to her teleportation ability, whatever her race and species had been, they seemed to have most of their powers linked to their mentality. The disturbances in her abilities would appear pretty logical in that case, too; if your powers stemmed from your mind and your mind was afflicted, it was natural that the powers, too, would become unstable, all the more so if you hadn't been taught about them in the first place. It looked like they mostly slipped out of control when she was least cognizant - during sleep or unconsciousness, because now that she was awake her mind was tightly shut off from him again.

Nevertheless, it seemed as though she had been able to sense the outward intrusion regardless. Her breaths were still uneven when she raised her voice in a whisper, causing the syllables to be airy and aspirated: "You've seen...?" Lynn had indeed been able to perceive him as he had called out to her within her nightmare, so if he had been there at the end of the dream, it suggested itself he had witnessed it from the very beginning.

Piccolo's arms around her reinforced their hold involuntarily, like an underlying reaction to the vulnerable tone of that question. He'd seen something utterly inmost and personal, and it almost sounded as though she was afraid of what he might think about it. "Yes."

She froze for a moment. "All of it...?" Every horrible detail...? Every desperate emotion...?

His reply was once more an honest and simple one. "Yes." Every horrible detail. Every desperate emotion. "I'm sorry you had to go through that..." And the feeling was genuine. Nobody deserved something like that, having to undergo what she'd been through; the slavery, the mistreatment, the torture and humiliation. There was an idle, unrealizable wish of wanting to have been there, to have been able to prevent any of it... But past was uncorrectable.

Lynn didn't verbally respond - wasn't able to, all words cut off by the emotion that constricted her frail chest right then, forcing new tears to refresh the cold traces of the many she'd already spilled. She hid her face against the curvature of his neck and, with a helpless whimper, burst into soft, unrestrained crying again. She didn't know why but his simple words, that artless sympathy, the co-vibrating desire to somehow have been able to help her back at that horrendous time in her life; all of those compassionate things radiating off him caused something within her to shatter. Having him emphasize, sympathize, feel for her, care for her like that forced something within her to tremble with the urge to fall apart.

At last... finally... someone knew. Knew and understood, knew and cared, knew and was willingly placing a soothing hand over the invisible, hideous wounds to stop their silent bleeding. She would never have been able to talk about the things he'd seen in the deepest, darkest corners of her mind, would have never found the strength to confide about them to anybody. But now he knew and she hadn't needed to utter even a word, and it was such an overwhelming feeling of... being a little bit more free inside. Now she could cry into somebody's chest, enwrapped in someone's arms, knowing that they knew and understood the why. Now she could let that pain take over, bury her under its furious waves and fade away like a falling tide, and have somebody keeping her afloat and breathing through it. Someone to hold her through the hurt and the fear and the anger, until a ray of light would brush away that horrid veil of thorns from her eyes.

And hold her he did, listening to her quiet, heartrending crying, the broken sobs and the sorrowful whimpers, letting her small hands clutch at him in a spastic, desperate grip and simply trying to offer whatever comfort she could take in his presence. It didn't occur to him immediately and that was too bad; but eventually he lighted his ki and gingerly let the light, electric-blue aura enshroud her in a thin layer, cloaking her quivering figure in a warm blanket of energy. It seemed to have a good and swift effect, the tranquil flow of his ki resonated with the erratic stream of her own, calming it - and her - down.

It was only then that he realized... that for the first time since she got here, she was having a palpable aura to begin with. He was stunned for a second; he couldn't discern a different ki signature, only a separate flow of it, but it was there. Retracting his own ki and lowering it again, he sensed for hers and found zilch. Not a flicker, nothing. But letting his ki rise and wrap itself around her again, there it was. A separate flow of energy, delicate and alive. Just to be sure, he repeated the procedure one more time. No doubt about it.

"That tingles..." Lynn uttered softly, her inflection breathy and faint, heavily affected by the emotional havoc she'd just pulled through.

"Oh, sorry." He hadn't thought about her possibly being sensitive to his experimental ki ministrations, hoping he hadn't caused her too much discomfort with it.

Unnoticed to herself, a gossamer smile livened up Lynn's pretty face as she lightly shook her head. "It's alright... I like it..." The sensation was pleasant and soothing, helping her to recompose and making her feel safe and protected. Beautiful and warm, it was unlike any other perception she'd ever experienced before.

Lifting her face she looked at him for the first time since her tearful awakening. In the dimness within the bedroom, his skin seemed a secretive myrtle in color, and his eyes... Enigmatic pools of infinite noire, poised in their unreadable gaze. "Thank you..." She whispered, for a moment entirely mesmerized by that composed expression and the close proximity of their quite intimately entwined bodies. Physically, she hadn't really been this close to anybody ever before. The strength that held her pressed against its muscular, powerful corporeal wraps was impressive, yet harmless and protective if only for her, and perhaps only for now. Quite suddenly, the sort of tingling that settled into her was something of an entirely different kind.

"You're welcome." The reply was automatic, he was barely aware of himself speaking because he was too aware of her all of a sudden. The comfy snuggle of her lithe little frame against his own, the deeply aureate eyes that stared at him like spellbound and her lips seeming the color of dark, ripe cherries in the moonlit darkness around them.

It must have been an instinct, even though he couldn't deny wanting it either. Leaning down slowly, he watched her reaction; those adorable, amber-hued doe eyes that simply kept gazing on at him showed no sign of fear or discomfort. More so... they seemed to reflect a sparkle of sweet thrill, he could feel the meek excitement cause her statuesque body to tense up in his careful grasp. There were no words, just body language, asking and giving permission with not a syllable uttered.

Angling his head he could feel the heat of her alluring lips mingle with that of his own, and his heart was losing its steady rhythm, pumping hot, eager blood through his veins. What the holy hell was he doing? His brain found no logical answer but his sentiment didn't require one anyway. It was a mere second, a speedy palpitation, a flash of a moment and still one of the most memorable events in his entire life as he banned all distance between them, pressing his lips to hers - and that charming, silky pair was the softest thing he'd ever touched, the feel of their velvety, pliant surface against his own already acutely addictive. He didn't register his arms closing their ring around her even more, gingerly bending her filigree frame further into him. He heard the delicate gasp that hitched her breath right then, the lovely sound trickling along his nerve tracts in a hitherto unknown but overly pleasant, electrifying perception.

The lifegiving muscle in the frail cage of her ribs thundered a beat so loud, Lynn could have believed to have gone deaf from it, freezing inside and out for the exception of her dainty fingers that flexed and abruptly curled more firmly into the fabric covering his well-built chest in some instinctual drive to hold him exactly where he was, right there, with his mouth on hers, with those confusingly amazing feelings that it brought and the beautiful mess it made of her senses. It was wonderful... Why was it so wonderful? Her mind didn't bother seeking the answer, much more content with focusing on the present, her long lashes sinking slowly in enjoyment of that beatific sensation until all she could see was a tiny, blurry crack of mixed colors while a fuzzy, prickling warmth started spreading throughout the entirely of her shapely figure which gradually relaxed in his careful and yet nigh... possessive embrace.

She didn't know how much time might have passed until they parted slowly, her head pleasantly spinning and her mind cozily dazed likely both from the undergone sensations and the mild lack of air that was now being compensated by a quickened, deeper pace of breathing. She felt comfy and tired and sleepy, and wouldn't let go of his gi top as he shifted them about in order to lay her back down into the cushions. She kept holding on, watching his hand come up to place itself atop her smaller own, squeezing softly. All she did was give him an equally soft but perceptible pull, unwilling to lose his safeguarding presence for tonight, more so wanting to have it ever nearer.

Piccolo hesitated for a moment, ultimately pulling the blanket over Lynn's petite frame and settling next to her not underneath but atop it, her slinky body cuddling up to him as though laying together like this was something that came naturally and easily to either of them where the exact opposite should have been the case. Yet there was no room for anything but comfort and relaxation in Lynn's equally exhausted and exhilarated mind, hiding into him and tucking herself away against his sturdy form, smiling absentmindedly at the light pressure of his chin coming to rest atop the crown of her chestnut hair. They seemed to fit together so nicely, with nothing but the thin barrier of the blanket being all that separated them and idly she almost wished it wasn't there either.

She fell asleep swiftly then, sleeping soundly for the reminder of the night with her rest remaining peaceful and serene throughout the hours to come much like that of many more who had found protection from their inner demons in the arms of another tonight.

Nightmares were frightful enemies indeed, and yet like almost any adversary they weren't impossible to defeat if you had but one helping hand to tightly grasp your own and guide you through them safely and unharmed.