A long, rising scream heralded the golden-white supernova over the ragged plateaus and hills dividing the forest from the wasteland. Vegeta's energy flared with it, and then collapsed on itself as the light slowly faded back into the rich, glaring orange of the sky as it slipped closer and closer to twilight. Tienshinhan's third eye watched it with a bored, measured stare. The man himself let his frown deepen from where he stood overlooking the desert valley upon the highest plateau, arms crossed and a wide farmer's rice hat shading his face.

Vegeta had been sitting in this cradle of the wilderness for days now, throwing tantrums, as if whatever contraption Bulma had made for him at her Corporation was some kind of womb he'd finally exploded from- like whatever was roiling inside him was too big to be contained in such a small space anymore, and he had been born back into his anger anew. To be perfectly blunt, Tienshinhan had not expected such a long wait time before Vegeta succumbed to his old habits, but his jaded expectations had done nothing to curb the bitter, sour taste of dread and anger when Vegeta had finally surged and clashed with Gohan in the dead of night.

Yamcha's face dredged itself up from the back of Tienshinhan's mind. The man was too far away for Tienshinhan to pinpoint at the best of times, much less when he was swimming in the gargantuan ocean of power Vegeta was generating, but something about that constant absence had him on edge. It was a hunch, maybe- or perhaps just paranoia.

"Or maybe you can have premonitions," Chiaotzu had suggested. "It's not like either of us know what all the Three-Eyed Clan is actually capable of, anyway."

Chiaotzu had a point, as he usually did, in that blunt, matter-of-fact way he had, but that had not stopped Tienshinhan from leaving him asleep and unaware on their farm.

Someone had to be there in case Launch showed up in a frenzy, after all.

Vegeta's energy plummeted back down to something more manageable and self-aware, and then he finally fell from his open, wide-armed pose down onto his knees. He shouted something across the barren, rocky land, and then brought his fists down to hit the earth like he was to beat out a rhythm on a giant, unbelievable drum. Tienshinhan took that as his cue. He hustled down from his perch and strode forward into the middle of the wasteland.

Vegeta called out to him before he was halfway to him, spit flying from his bared teeth as he scrambled back to his feet. "Are you just going to gawk, you three-eyed cretin, or do you actually have something to say?"

Tienshinhan snorted, and wisely bit back any retort about Vegeta letting him get a word in edgewise over the sound of his obnoxious screaming. "Have I caught you at a bad time?"

The sudden collision of enameled white on white in Vegeta's mouth ground out a curse. "Smartass. You came here to mock me?" The hair on his neck stood on end and trembled in the breeze.

Shen and Tao Pai Pai might have, but their student had separated himself from their teachings long ago. "No. I came here to ask you something."

"Then ask it, and get out of my sight!"

Tienshinhan's mouth turned down even further. "Since you're so eager to get this over with, I'll get straight to it- what were you and Gohan fighting over?"

Vegeta tensed like Chiaotzu when he was caught telling a lie about not spilling the milk or about planting the wrong bulbs at the wrong season when the harvest was poor. "Shut up," he spat. "That has nothing to do with you."

"It disturbed my and Chiaotzu's rest, and scared the animals out of the woods and fields," Tienshinhan said, his eyes narrowing. "I don't appreciate that. I'd say that warrants some kind of an explanation."

"Then sleep deeper and don't concern yourself with the activity of animals far weaker than you," Vegeta quipped, and waved his hand. "Now, leave. I don't have time for your petty little brown nosing." He turned his head, nose in the air.

Tienshinhan hated this routine from the bottom of his heart. It was like looking into some strange, short, hairy, princely alien two-eyed mirror. He could not stand it "No."

Vegeta gawked, and then spun around with his fists in the air like he might strangle the atmosphere itself. "No?!"

"I haven't brown-nosed to my satisfaction yet." Tien straightened himself out. "What has you so riled up, Vegeta?"

"That's," Vegeta inhaled, and then his shout echoed across the wasteland again. "That's none of your business, you mutant insect! I could have crushed all of your kind long ago, but I did not! Don't give me a reason to do so now!"

It's true that Tienshinhan was playing a dangerous game, but then, if he did not, someone else, someone vastly less prepared, would have to. "Oh, yeah? All of my kind?" He doubted Vegeta knew enough to differentiate between regular humans, Animal People, and those of the Three-Eyed Clan. "You think it's right and just to punish the all for the transgressions of the one? Some prince you are. Maybe it's a good thing you were never meant to be king."

For a moment, Vegeta looked like he might have seen a ghost, but then his fist came hurtling towards Tien's stomach so quickly and so suddenly that it could have been Tienshinhan's own imagination that conjured up the whole conversation and left him in a blacked-out stupor.

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The atmosphere around the dinner table was among the most awkward Videl had ever experienced. Nobody was particularly hungry, either, save little Goten, who was shoveling food into his mouth neatly and systematically just as he did at every mealtime. His big brother, his only competitor in appetite ever, ate as well, although it was definitely subdued. Their chewing was the only noise in the room.

The seven of them- Videl, her father, the masked woman, Sevoya Anillo, and the three Sons- had been shielded from this kind of strangled, uncertain silence at the ceremonial banquet earlier in the day thanks to the chatter and address of the myriad of old country people feasting in the hall and making merry. Now it was night, the palace was empty, and nothing could shield them from one another's tight-lipped trepidation around each other.

Videl bit her lip and examined her steamed rice. Why did Sevoya have to come here? Was it to laugh at the Satans? Did she come to gloat over how Mark Satan really was a fraud, and how stupid Videl was? Was she here to snare them into some kind of trap with the media? How did she find them? Did she always know Gohan was Saiyaman- because of course he was Saiyaman; any idiot in this situation could have figured it out by now- and came to laugh at how badly she had been played? Videl chanced a glance Sevoya, who was already looking at her and then blushed and looked away when their eyes met. So did Videl.

Some kind of light orange sauce covered her rice. The slice of red bell pepper sitting atop it was cut in the shape of a star. She looked around the table. Her father had two stars on his, and the masked woman had three. Chi Chi had five, Sevoya seven, Gohan four, and Goten probably had six before he had eaten them all. Weird. Maybe it was a cultural thing.

When Videl finally looked back up, Sevoya was instead busily staring at Gohan, who was coolly regarding the masked woman, who was avoiding his eyes and fixating on Videl's father, who was busy marveling at Goten, who was very involved with his rapidly disappearing mountain of food, and then occupied by holding out his empty rice bowl to his mother and asking, "More, please!"

"Where does it, uh." Videl's father blinked. "Where does it all go? How can one little kid eat so much?"

Chi Chi filled the bowl, handed it back, and said, "Is it that strange for a boy to eat his mother's food?! Is there something wrong with my cooking?"

Then, everybody snagged the nearest edible and shoved it into their mouths with great gusto.

Chi Chi nodded in approval, and then snagged one of the stars from her decorated bowl of rice and chewed upon it politely. Then, she cast a dazzling smile at Sevoya. "Sevoya, dear, we're so happy to have you here for this special day! How is your father? He was so nice. And your mother? I did not get to meet her, but is she doing well?"

Sevoya's expression stiffened into a smile. "My, um. My mom is dead. She died, um. The day of the Cell Games." She turned to Gohan, like she was waiting for him to say something. His mother beat him to it.

"Oh! I'm so sorry," Chi Chi said. "I must've forgotten! I didn't mean to upset you."

"It's alright," Sevoya said. "I don't remember if I told you or not. The day we met is all kind of a blur." Videl noticed how her hands clenched and unclenched in her lap. "Oh, but my dad's fine. Just doing the same old thing at the restaurant! You know, holding down the fort. Making a living." More organically, she added, "Thank you for having me."

"Of course!" Chi Chi grinned. "The future queen of Fire Mountain is always welcome!"

Sevoya's green eyes widened. "Excuse me?"

"You're my son's girlfriend, aren't you?"

That certainly pulled Gohan from his solemn trance real quick. "Mom!"

Sevoya looked into her bowl of red stars, like she could wish on them. "No. We're only friends."

Gohan shook his head, adamant.

"Oh? Is that what you city kids call it these days?" She chuckled. "What do you think, miss mask? And isn't it rude to wear facewear at the table? Especially one like that!"

The masked woman dropped the piece of chicken she was furtively trying to shove beneath her Monkey King facade and into her mouth. It hit her plate with a spectacular splat. "I-I, uh, my face is too unsightly for a place like this! Yeah! I have, uh, horrible face herpes and it's not pleasant to look at when you're eating! Yeah! That's it!"

"Ew!" Goten interjected between bites. "What're face harpies?" Gohan shushed him.

Videl narrowed her eyes. She knew that voice. She thought she recognized her stature and way of walking when Gohan had first brought her in.

"Just take it off, Thalia," Gohan said. "It's fine."

"Thalia! Hey, yeah!" Videl blurted. "You're the one that- yeah!" She stood up and jabbed a finger squarely at the Monkey King mask.

"It's rude to point at the table, Videl," Chi Chi said. "Not that I blame you."

Videl did a double-take and sat back down. "Sorry." She glared at Thalia again as she removed her mask. "But you are the one that tried to kidnap me at the tournament."

Thalia's exposed face and unmuffled voice countered with an, "I took you back, though!"

"What?!" This time, it was Videl's father's turn to jump to his feet and point. "You're a woman?! I thought you were a man!"

"What?!" Thalia leapt to her feet and drew her pointer finger, too. "And you're a fake?! I never would have guessed!"

Chi Chi slammed her bowl down on the table. "What did I just tell Videl?"

The two of them sat back down, abashed. "Sorry."

Chi Chi nodded. "Thalia. Your name is Thalia. And where are you from, Thalia?"

She froze in her chair. "I'm, um, I'm from a place in the Northwestern mountain area."

"Oh? Does your family know what you've been up to?"

"They're," Thalia folded her hands neatly on the table. "They're all dead. They were killed because," Videl noticed she glanced at Gohan and Sevoya before addressing Chi Chi, "well. They died after the Cell Games."

Chi Chi opened her mouth, and then closed it again. "I see," she said. "I'm sorry."

"It's not," Thalia grinned, ruefully, and prodded at the stars on her rice, "it's not your fault. There was no way you could have prevented the public's sudden terror and resulting inquisition of ki users." Her eyes drifted around to Videl's father like she wanted to say something else, but didn't.

Videl still felt her ears burning from it, even so. She stuffed a wad of orange rice into her mouth, smashed it into nothing between her teeth, and wished as hard as she could that this dinner was over, that she could punch something or someone, that her father had never lied, that she was stronger, anything. Instead, she pushed her chair from the table and snatched up her father's empty plate.

"I'm finished," she said. "Excuse me. I'll do the dishes."

Sevoya almost tripped over her teal robes and silken scarf in her haste as she rose to her feet. "I'll help you," she said.

Videl turned on her heel and did not look back. "I'll do them by myself."

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Fire Mountain was so hot that night that the moon would not even enter the sky. Sevoya fanned the collar of her silken robe and almost envied it. Space was cold, supposedly, and this place could do with a little bit of cold besides Videl's icy reception.

Sevoya's room had no central cooling. Nowhere in the palace but the kitchen did, for the freezer. She suspected that the only reason this was so had to do with how expensive it would be to run air conditioning for a structure this large. But the room was big, with a canopied bed and silken sheets and a quilt with white peonies embroidered on it. The dress she had worn earlier hung on a dress form in the corner of the room, like a ghost was standing in it and filling the fabric.

Sevoya turned her head and looked out the window. It was hot. She was thirsty.

She stood up and crept into the hall. She knew that to her right were more bedrooms, one of which Videl occupied, and the kitchen itself was somewhere to the left and down a few halls. Maybe. Standing there sweltering would solve nothing; she padded out into the hallway and journeyed forth. The carvings in the wood and gilded finishes watched her with unblinking eyes all along her path.

Soon, she was lost. It probably would have been smarter to wake someone up and ask for directions in the first place, but that would have involved actually speaking with them. Sevoya found that the only person she wanted to talk to was Gohan, who had barely said a word or given her so much as a glance that day.

He was busy. He was stressed. She should have expected this, really. He did not have the time or energy to spend with her.

Sevoya rounded another corner and found the main balcony overlooking the volcano, the same one where Gohan had been crowned king. She also found Gohan himself standing upon it, fully dressed, with his back to her as he looked up at the sky. The dull light of the distant caldera twinkled in the distance.

"I'm sorry about how dinner went," he said as she approached. "This is an uncomfortable place, isn't it?"

Sevoya blinked. "No, not necessarily. It's just hot. I don't know how you can still stand to walk around in that."

"It's a little toasty, yeah." He grinned and turned around. "Once, this place was completely covered in a weird fire that never extinguished. I'm not entirely sure it still isn't. That's the curse of Fire Mountain, I guess."

"Curse?" Sevoya asked. "That it's hot? I thought that was just, like, because it's near the equator."

Gohan chuckled. "Well, that too. But it was set on fire as punishment for my grandfather's arrogance and greed, I think."

"Or maybe because he built it next to a volcano."

Gohan laughed again. "That's why it's arrogant."

Sevoya came closer. "Is arrogant a synonym for "not thinking ahead" in this context, or what? Because I don't think that it's arrogant- I think it's just plain stupid."

Gohan nodded. "I think you might be right. But… it's not a good idea to speak ill of the dead."

Sevoya felt the hot air settle turn to chilled water washing the color from her body. "I- I am so sorry! I didn't mean it like that! I didn't mean to insult your grandfather! I-"

Gohan waved it away. "It's fine. I think he'd agree with you. It wasn't exactly a secret that he had a tendency to get ahead of himself. Honestly, that's how everyone in my family is, in one way or another."

"Even you?" Sevoya asked, joining him on the railing of the balcony.

"Considering the situation, yeah. I'd say so." Gohan nodded. His black hair bobbed along with him. It was getting longer. Then, he said, "I'm sorry about your mother."

"It's not your fault." Sevoya dug her fingers into the handrail. "In fact," she started to shake, and she regarded Gohan with big, wide eyes, "I know you probably don't remember, but I wanted to say thank you for walking me home through the crowd that day."

Gohan mulled her words over. "That day? Was this at school?" He glanced at her feet. "Oh, you forgot your slippers!"

Sevoya pressed forward, hands at her sides, stepped one bare foot closer to Gohan, and grabbed the front of his changshan. "You had mourning clothes on, and a bouquet of white lilies. Were those for your father? Because I," she started to breathe harder, "I was supposed to bring home the lilies from my mother's casket that day, but I was so angry that I forgot!"

At some point, Gohan had thrown his arms around her and pulled her into a hug. His fingers stroked her hair, and he rocked her back and forth. "It's okay, it's okay," he soothed. "I promise that one day I'm going to be able to make all of this okay for everybody."

He smelled like their dinner and incense and fresh-cut bamboo, and held her like she might break if he so much as breathed the wrong way. She didn't care that it was even more unbearably hot in his embrace- he was there, and he was listening. Eventually, though, Sevoya's tremors subsided and she pulled herself more closely to him. "Were they?" she asked. "Were they for your father?"

Gohan shook his head against her hair. "They were not for my father," he said. "They were for someone else who died then, too. I had just bought them and was about to take them to where his body was destroyed."

"I'm sorry," said Sevoya. "Did the monster kill them, or did…?" She choked on her words. Her necklace felt heavy around her neck.

She had brought it with her, just in case.

"Yes," Gohan said, after an eternity of silence. "Was your mother in the military, or a challenger, or someone absorbed from the nearby towns?"

"No." Sevoya pressed her face closer to his neck. Finally, finally, someone was there who would listen! "She killed herself. With poison."

Gohan held her tighter, and some heat entered his voice. "Was she really so afraid that she would leave her family behind rather than face whatever happened at their side?"

"I think, had I gone with her, she would have killed me too, first, before my sister. She killed my sister, and they went together. Or maybe I could have stopped her. I don't know. But I shouldn't have stayed with my father in the basement during the broadcast, or I shouldn't have let her leave. Or maybe not. I don't know if that would have done anything. I don't know. It was an act of defiance. She did it because of the Delivery Boy."

Gohan stiffened, and his grip became much, much stronger. "What?"

Sevoya molded herself into it. "She left the room because they offered a child up to fight. We heard a thud when he started screaming and the broadcast cut off, and I so I went upstairs and found her. She could... I know it sounds stupid, since we aren't martial artists or anything, but she could sense energy. Her father used her to place bets on the fighters at the Tenkaichi Budokai and other competitions. That's how my parents met- at the Tenkaichi Budokai." She closed her eyes and focused on Gohan's heartbeat. It was speeding up. "When the Delivery Boy started screaming, I think he did something, and I think my mother thought whatever he did was actually Cell preparing to destroy the Earth, and she panicked. It was her last act of defiance, to die by her own hands."

Gohan started breathing harder. His fingers bit into Sevoya's skin, and the wind seemed to emanate from his body like his heart was hammering out a hurricane with each beat.

"Gohan," said Sevoya, "you're hurting me. Gohan?"

His muscles tensed, and Sevoya swore she heard his bones crack and his body rearrange itself under her arms. The ground started to shudder and shake, and a deep rumbling sounded from over the balcony.

"Gohan!" She tried to push herself away from him, but realized that she couldn't- his grip was like iron, and his nails like barbs ripping through her clothing, through her skin. "Gohan!" Sevoya screamed. "Let me go! Gohan!"

The rumbling grew louder and louder, and suddenly a great something pushed out of Gohan and passed through Sevoya, like a demon had shot through her and punctured a hole in the center of her soul. The ground disappeared and a constant roar filled her ears, and then, a scream with no beginning or end until her ears started to ring. An explosion of flame lit up the earth below them, and then more and more appeared like Hell had opened up to dissolve and swallow the earth. The back of the palace began to crumble and fall into the caldera. "Gohan!" She screamed, and finally managed to push her torso away from him. "Gohan, it's falling! We have to do something or Videl and your family-!"

But the person holding her hostage was not Gohan; he had hair of golden flame, not black of night, and green, soulless eyes set in a face too sharp, too unfamiliar, too cruel to be his. Light sparked and crackled around him, and the burning ash spewing from below swirled overhead.

Sevoya might have said something else to him, something strangled, but whatever it was faded out along with her vision.

The last thing she heard was a voice inside her head that was not her own, saying, "Piccolo, Piccolo! Hurry! The man sleeping in the northern mountains- he felt Gohan's anger, and he has awoken!"

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Thanks for your patience and thank you to all of you who read and encourage me to continue. This is not possible without you!