Happy April Fool's Day!
The look on Trunks face was one of despair and heartbreak. Gohan had gone to deal with the Androids, never explaining why he had to do it.
Thea said nothing...there was nothing she could say.
However...there was something she could do that she wished someone else had done for her.
Hot tears fell down his face, looking at the body of his mentor and friend. He blinked when he felt the sensation of warm fur cross his check.
Turning, he saw...a massive fox with green eyes?
The fox wrapped itself around Trunks, obscuring his body.
No words needed to be said. Trunks seemed to instinctively understand what she was offering. With a sob, he leaned into her fur and just hugged it, crying his eyes out. Thea wrapped herself around him, letting him get it out. She wished someone had been there for her when she lost Sirius.
Trunks didn't remember falling asleep. He just remembered waking up in his bed, feeling utterly exhausted.
He found his mother crying almost as hard as he had, a tired expression on her face. Thea was in the kitchen, making something that they could at least keep down. If there was one major perk to her joining them, it was that the quality of food went up significantly.
"How long was I out?" asked Trunks.
"Two days," said Thea. "I made sure to give Gohan a proper burial."
"What do we do now?" asked Trunks. He felt so lost without his mentor.
"First you are going to grieve. You won't be of use to anyone until you've accepted what's happened to the point you won't challenge the androids in a blind rage," said Thea flatly.
Trunks glared at her.
"Like you would know of loss!" he shouted.
Thea set down her spoon and carefully moved the knife away from herself.
"You think you know what pain is like? You know nothing of my life, Trunks Briefs,"she snarled.
Her eyes bore into his, almost blazing in fury.
"You think your life is tough simply because you've lost a few people to some robots?" she snarled.
Trunks wouldn't be the only one flinching by the end of it...his mother was too.
There was a tense atmosphere in the air you could almost cut with a knife. It was that bad.
When they went out into the wastelands, Trunks didn't hesitate. He happily threw the first punch without any regard to whether Thea could dodge it.
Thea had her own demons to work out...she could care less about a broken bone or five. The two went after each other without a second thought, their minds only on venting a rage they couldn't express with just words. It wasn't aimed at each other, but at the people who had taken everything from them.
Trunks, who lost his father, his mentor, his innocence all because of the android's rampage.
Thea, who never had anything resembling a real childhood and whom death seemed to follow regardless of where she went. That the Dursleys survived so long was an unwanted miracle in her opinion.
By the end of it both were panting, though Thea's rub was rather bruised and Trunks had a rather spectacular black eye from a right cross he hadn't dodged quickly enough.
Thea was about to sit up and say something before she cried out in unexpected pain. Trunks immediately sat up, ignored the dizziness he got from it, and looked at her. She was clutching the odd scar on her forehead, like she was in a great deal of pain.
"Thea, what's wrong?" he demanded.
Thea was wincing, which showed how much pain she was in. Trunks had learned the last time she broke her arm that she had an insane pain tolerance.
"I had a vision...that damn fool I left behind in England has made a major play on the school. Dear gods, the number of victims..." said Thea. She looked terrible.
Trunks was a bit tired, but not so much he couldn't carry her to see his mother.
It showed how crappy she felt that she didn't argue at the princess carry, though she unfortunately stayed conscious through it this time. By the time they returned to the base and Thea had some headache medicine (which she took rarely because it had the unusual side effect of knocking her out), she was down to shaking slightly.
Bulma was just glad the tension from the past week had disappeared, even if the reason why upset her.
"So let me get this straight...this terrorist has been harassing this community for decades...and they let him?" said Trunks. He hadn't cared about why Thea was so reluctant to go back to her home country before, but it seemed that her problems were starting to catch up to her again.
"They're a bunch of damn sheeple," said Thea in disgust. "They'll follow the strongest voice so long as that person is willing to demonstrate it and gets enough of the movers and shakers to back them. Their government is so corrupt it's worthless, and they've leashed the only people who have the balls to actually do something about it for years now."
It didn't help that Dumbledore had willingly allowed it, and was so focused on the greater good that he failed to realize he was part of the problem.
Sometimes the only way to deal with an infection was to remove the infected flesh...even if it meant losing a limb or two.
Thea was too dizzy to do anything. It was going to take a few days before she could move, much less cast a spell.
Bulma watched as her son took care of Thea while she tried to get information from England... Baba was usually rather cagey about the details regarding magic.
Mostly because she didn't want to see the Z-team being mind wiped by morons.
To her surprise, the old woman made an actual appearance the second she heard of Thea's condition.
Baba looked over the girl, hemming and hawing every so often.
"The girl has a spiritual parasite attached to her...some idiot has allowed it to fester for far too long...this is going to be tricky."
"Parasite?" said Thea. Her head thumped back onto the small pillow. "Bloody hell... don't tell me I have a piece of that tosser Riddle in me."
"It wouldn't surprise me in the least," said Baba. "Fortunately for you, I have ways to deal with this sort of thing, but it's going to cost you."
"I don't care how much gold it'll cost, just get it out!" said Thea.
"I'm not talking money deary, though I will be charging your accounts a hefty sum," said Baba cackling. "I meant that when you and this brash idiot have kids, I want first dibs on being named Godmother and which one I'll take on as apprentice."
Trunks and Thea blushed at that. Baba and Bulma shared a laugh at their reaction.
"This isn't some Rumpelstiltskin type contract, is it?" said Thea suspiciously.
"While I applaud your common sense, I have no interest in keeping a child from it's parents," deadpanned Baba. "However anyone born of that fool's bloodline and having one of the strongest mages in this generation is certain to be a powerhouse. And that's before you add in Saiyan blood into the mix."
"What's a Saiyan?" said Thea confused.
"My father and Gohan's father were Saiyans," explained Trunks. "They were part of a conquering alien race that was contracted out to someone who betrayed them and wiped out the planet, save for a few rare survivors."
"...I'm just going to accept that and move on," said Thea after a moment. She was a witch...rewriting time and space was nothing to her, so alien races were well within the range of possibility.
Thea would almost grimace at the chunk of gold Baba removed from her account (without directly going to the bank) except the peace of mind knowing that the parasite was dealt with more than made up for it.
Either way, Baba did confirm Voldemort had not only attacked the school, but that Dumbledore was dead at his hands. Or rather at the hand of one Severus Snape.
As if she needed more reason to want that bastard dead.
Thea's return to England was not met with any fanfare. Rather it was met with irritation and exasperation.
"That girl... when is she ever going to use her common bloody sense?" said Thea annoyed.
"I thought you said this was her parent's house?" said Trunks.
"It is. Hermione must have wiped their memories and made a suggestion they move for their protection."
Mr. and Mrs. Granger were beyond angry with their daughter, but agreed to leave England for the time. Mostly because Thea had been kind enough to break the memory spell on them, explain the situation in full detail, and give them an alternative.
It would do Hermione some good to panic about the whereabouts of her parents once the war was dealt with. Maybe then she'd get her head out of her ass. For the time being the Grangers would be spending time with Bulma acting as medical doctors and helping the effort to deal with the androids once and for all.
"Where to next?" asked Trunks.
Thea made a face.
"Diagon alley. We'll need to stop at the bank regardless so I can claim my full inheritance...I remember Fred and George sending me a letter that they'd opened a shop there as well. Considering all that's going on, I can't think of anyone better to give the android's headache than those two."
A few Weasley specials were sure to piss off 17 and 18.
The trip to the bank was easy...dealing with the twins who initially thought she was a ghost or someone under polyjuice was a headache.
Fred's hug was downright bone-crushing, and George kept looking at her like she wasn't real.
"What happened to you mate? It took hours before the Order found out you weren't in the rubble," said George. He was drinking a bit of...fortified...tea to sooth his nerves.
Thea sighed tiredly.
"Muggle robots happened," she said. "I barely escaped with my life, and I've been living with him and his mother helping them deal with them rather than go back to Hogwarts."
"Muggle robots?" said Fred incredulous.
"They're called Androids," she explained. "And apparently they've been causing a real mess of things among the muggles for a while now. I just had the bad luck of being there when they targeted Surrey for whatever reason."
"Uh-huh...so you drop off the grid and somehow managed to find yourself a boyfriend. Is that right?" said George.
Trunks tensed. He did not like the look they were giving him.
"Seems to me we need to have a word with your new friend here," said Fred, eyes glinting and the smile not reaching his eyes. Trunks very nearly backed away from it.
"Nothing permanent," she called out. "And I am not telling your mother where I'm staying dammit! Knowing her she'd just hide me in that damn house again or worse and I'd never get any real peace!"
"You know the clock will show her you're back," said George.
"Yes, but it won't tell her the exact location," said Thea.
Trunks would come out of that 'talk' a tad rattled, but with a good impression of the twins. They really cared for her to react that way.
While they crashed in the shop's spare room, during the night there was a bit of a commotion.
Fred and George reappraised Thea's new boyfriend when they saw him quite literally blasting the Death Eaters trying to burn them out of their business with blasts of pure magical energy.
Trust Thea to find the one guy who had that sort of power within him...at least he wasn't some wimp who was afraid to fight, or get his hands dirty.
Trunks took one look at the Death Eater and took out his sword when they got too close. More than a few of them met the end of his blade and wouldn't come out of this mess alive. He felt zero remorse for people who targeted children.
Molly was exactly as Thea had feared, and she would happily take to the sky to avoid being trapped in that house. She was all too experienced on the way Molly treated anyone under a certain age and she'd be damned if she was cornered by the woman.
Honest concern or not, Thea was firm on staying outside for multiple reasons.
After a few strongly worded remarks, the Weasleys mostly let it go, though she got a few commiserating looks from Bill over it. They were just happy she was alive.
Thea had trouble looking at Hermione, knowing what the fool girl had done to her own parents. It took every ounce of willpower not to rub that in her face.