Chapter Twelve
"Here I stand, helpless and left for dead."
-Breaking Benjamin "Dance With the Devil"
WARNING! This chapter is drowning in VIOLENCE folks! You have been WARNED!
Bardock felt the change in the air around him as he saw the prisoners fall, one by one in the containment spheres; he held his breath as he drew back and laid another mark against the teenager's back, flinching at the scream that erupted from the boy just as the cavernous room was lit with an other-worldly light.
He had one moment to realize that the light came from Gohan before he was picked up and physically thrown away.
He took a moment to take stock of his surroundings from where he was slumped against the far wall. People, equipment—even the containment spheres—where blasted away from the epicenter of the room: Son Gohan.
The teenager floated in the center of the room, no longer bound by the wires from the ceiling, instead, bathed in a pristine, hot white light that emanated from his chest. Across the room, Seriff rose up and crawled to the healing tank that had been shattered on impact from the force. Fya cowered against one of the far walls. Bardock shook his head and stood, unsurprised as Nomad strode quickly forward, already on his feet, his lips moving quickly, his blue eyes wild and feverish as he approached the teenager. He motioned to some of the warriors to his right, and before Bardock could warn them, they jumped at the suspended demi-Saiyajin.
Without a sound, the boy moved one hand and all three men hit the floor, dead. Screaming something unintelligible, Nomad brought his hands up and cut the air before him with several sharp movements. Bardock growled and pushed himself to his feet, edging around the side of the room toward where the containment spheres had been. Goku stood, looking no worse for the wear with Piccolo and Krillin at his sides. All three were watching the proceedings with varying levels of raw horror.
They grasped how bad this could be.
He skirted the edge, keeping his attention on the teenager and Nomad as he neared Seriff. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted that Goku's wife held their younger son pressed close against her body and the wall, shielding the little boy from the room. Her dark eyes glued to her older son.
Bardock reached Seriff and grabbed her arm, pulling her back behind the crumpled bit of metal from the tank.
"Mistress!" She called, her voice choked with fear and hysteria. "Mistress! The Stone! I have brought you the Stone, Mistress! Please! Please, Mistress!" Near them, Nomad screamed something in an unknown language, continuing to sign odd, ancient runes with his hands, moving closer and closer to the bright white body in the center of the room.
Fear gripped the Saiyajin warrior as the alien known as Nomad stepped closer and closer to the oblivious boy. With a shouted warning, Bardock watched as Nomad's fingertips barely brushed the skin on Gohan's right arm—before the man's arm flopped to the cold floor of the room, detached and bleeding freely where it landed. Nomad screamed and stumbled backwards, but his scream was cut short as the teenager suddenly moved, thrusting his right hand straight into the blonde's abdomen. Time froze for an instant as, behind him, the boy's mother screamed. Warriors all around the room seemed unable to react as Nomad's body fell with a gurgle and a thump from the teenager's outstretched hand.
His hand was not fisted, but stretched out, fingers laid tightly together, creating the perfect weapon. With a blank expression, the boy's feet touched the floor. Bardock stood, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end as Seriff still remained at his feet, clinging to her mistress.
Gohan's hair was gold, and his eyes the terrifying green of the ascended Saiyajin, but this was more than just ascension.
"Leave!" Bardock shouted at the warriors still lingering around the room, quickly, there was a mad, rushing exodus to the large door. Gohan turned, his expression still void, and raised a single palm, a bright glow of power building quickly there.
His father landed in front of him, his brow creased in concern and hands raised in peace.
"Gohan," the man began, but was cut off as the teenager released his blast directly at the warriors leaving. Reacting quickly, Goku deflected the blow away, sending it blasting into the far wall of the room. Coincidentally, this opened up an alternate escape route for many of the men, who saw their opportunity and obeyed their commanding officer by fleeing for their very lives.
"Gohan!" Goku called again, pushing up into the boy's personal space and grasping his arms. "Stop! It's over!" But his son was beyond hearing.
Quickly, the teenager yanked away and shoved both of his hands against his father's chest, blowing him against the far wall, where he smacked the wall and lay, dazed.
"Gohan!" The short, bald man jumped into the boy's path. "Wait! What's wrong?" But again, any attempt at reason was met with outright violence and the short man barely dodged a thin, laser-like beam of ki that would have skewered him.
Piccolo grabbed the teenager from behind, slipping his arms up until he had the kid in a lock, but the teenager's response was to twist and plant his hand deep into the Namekjin's abdomen, much like he had Nomad. Piccolo's expression was stricken with surprise as Gohan blew him off of his hand, sending the alien tumbling a few feet away.
"Gohan!" Goku called, his tone unbelieving. He rushed at the boy again, the boy's mother screaming again in the back ground, and in an instant, Bardock foresaw the teenager putting a hand threw his father chest.
In one blinding moment, several things happened at once. The room they were in screamed and rent nearly in two as Bardock intercepted Goku and viciously smacked him away before facing the out of control teenager. Sweat dripped down Bardock's spine as he faced the boy and with a sudden, terrifying knowledge, the Saiyajin warrior knew his fate.
And with a last glance toward the opposite wall, where Seriff sat clinging to her mistress, he locked eyes with her…and accepted it.
DBZ
Blinding, white fire broke across Gohan's consciousness, as an intrusive personality invaded his mind, breaking through into him, and showing him a memory with a familiar feeling.
"So this is the new one, yes?" Someone said in the corridor outside of the room he was in. Gohan looked down and saw a woman holding a bundle in her arms, sweat clinging to her forehead that plastered her long black hair to her skin. Standing near her was a man. Bardock. With another bundle in his arms.
"What good, strong males we have," the woman said, her voice rough and thickly accented. Bardock looked at her and smiled.
"Of course; they're ours," he replied. The woman smiled.
"Have you named that one yet?" Bardock looked back down at the bundle in his arms, and with growing alarm, Gohan realized it was an infant.
"Kakarott."
With a scream born of pain that wasn't his, Gohan returned to himself, a known and yet unfamiliar presence warring for control as he panted, and looked into Bardock's surprised face.
And then he looked down, and realized his hand was embedded in the man's sternum. Warm, pulsating blood and tissue pressed against his hand, unnaturally warming it. With a cry, the teenager watched as the man pulled himself off of Gohan's hand and fell back onto the floor. Bardock covered the wound with his fingers, but his crimson life force continued to drain away, seeping between his fingers.
"Sorry, Kid," the warrior whispered, dark eyes that were so very, very familiar softened for the first time in the face of the man before him. "I tried to fix it." His breathing grew shallower as his dark eyes started to become unfocused.
Gohan took one look at his surroundings and cried, collapsing on the floor beside the older man. He pushed his hands against the warrior's wound, trembling as blood flowed out freely. The old warrior's eyes had faded, unfocused and cold as the tumbling rivulets of blood began to slow. Stunned, Gohan pulled his sticky fingers away.
"No, no!" the teenager screamed as flashes of memory flew up to blind him. He raised his head and saw the cloaked woman on the floor beside the still figure from inside the cylinder, but his searching gaze didn't stop there. Next he saw his father as the man approached him cautiously from the side.
"Dad?" he asked, his voice breaking. Tears spilled over and crashed down his cheeks as he turned to look behind him. The room was split open and standing on the floor beneath the opening were Eighteen, Vegeta, and Yamacha.
"Piccolo?" Gohan called, his shaking making it impossible for him to stay up on his knees; he fell forward, his blood covered hands slipping on the hard floor.
"I'm alive," Piccolo grumbled from off to the teenager's right. His relief at seeing the alien was short lived as shock started to take over. Harshly, he tried to get himself under control, swallowing down his tears and trying to forcefully shove his emotions away, back into that dangerous world that he had lived out of for so long.
No.
"What the hell?" Gohan heard Piccolo say. Feeling as if he were losing his battle, the teenager opened his eyes and found his father's chest in his line of sight. Goku was turned to the right, looking behind himself.
And that's when Gohan saw her eyes.
The woman with the red hair was standing now, the other woman one step behind her and to her immediate right.
And her eyes were just as red as her hair. Dread began to pool in Gohan's belly.
But then the music started again, and the shock and terror and pain that he had been struggling to contain were quickly contained for him. The cloaked woman floated slowly over to where Bardock had fallen and pressed her hands against his chest, but Gohan was frozen in place, unable to react as the red eyed woman moved slowly closer.
Goku stood and faced the woman.
From her place on the floor, the woman called Seriff suddenly hissed much like an angry cat, her head turned in Goku's direction, but before anyone could act, the red-eyed woman raised her hand to Seriff. Immediately, Seriff calmed and turned her attention back to Bardock.
"Please, do not be alarmed," the red-eyed woman said, her expression neither threatening nor friendly, but oddly detached. She looked right at Goku.
"I will help first, and then we"—here she gestured at the woman crouched over Bardock—"will explain." Her eyes drifted down to capture Gohan.
"And I will explain what you carry." Goku moved back, dropped to one knee directly beside Gohan and gripped his shoulder tightly—drawing a shriek from the teenager. Goku lifted his hand in surprise, and then grit his teeth in anger as his eyes fell on the cross hatching of lines that roped across the teenager's back.
"Gohan," Chichi said softly as she sidled up to her son and husband, dropping beside them and setting Goten down close to her. "Thank Kami you're both okay."
Gohan wondered if he should argue with that assessment.
"What the hell?" Vegeta swore from behind them. Goku turned and spared the man a glance, smiling at Yamacha's expression of confusion.
"Good to see you, Vegeta," Goku commented. Gohan could not remove his gaze from the woman with the red eyes, no matter how hard he tried. Although he could not tell for sure if it was due to fear or fascination.
As his adrenaline washed away, he began to hurt. Shock warred with confusion as his predominate emotion, although shock was winning against his body as he started to tremble badly.
While the red-eyed woman turned to assist the cloaked woman, Goku turned and cupped Gohan's cheeks with his large hands. Chichi made a strange sound as his back was turned in her direction: Gohan assumed the flesh on his back was shredded if the way that it felt had anything to do with the way it looked.
"Gohan, what hurts? Tell me, so that we can help," Chichi said, gently laying a hand on his shoulder, smoothly avoiding any of the torn flesh. Gohan shuddered harder, totally unable to contain his shaking, adrenaline-spent body any longer.
"Gohan," Goten whispered, sitting close to his brother's knees, his small hands bumping into the blood still smeared on the teenager's hands and coloring the floor before him in a macabre painting. Gohan sucked in a breath and expelled it too quickly, his ribs protesting as his lungs tried to out think his brain on how to function.
"Calm down, son, you're breathing too fast," Goku murmured, meeting his eyes; the dark orbs were blurred and for the life of him, Gohan could not focus on them. The pressure building blindly within his head pushed to the forefront and with a final sigh, Gohan passed into nothingness.