Beginning with an End
Part 6
Chi-Chi had
just returned from the doctor's office, and as incredibly ill as she felt, she
couldn't wait to tell her husband her little piece of good news when he
returned home. She had watched in
terror as her baby Gohan and a strange girl had beaten that terrible monster
Cell. She cringed at the thought, she
couldn't believe that Goku had just stood by and let such a poor little girl
fight, let alone his own son. Ooh…he
would get a good talking to when he got home, but right now she just didn't
feel like it. She sighed, letting out a
deep breath, along with her negativity; she wasn't going to let anything spoil
her good mood. She couldn't wait to see
her precious little boy again, and in this mood, she even couldn't stay angry
at Goku. She suddenly clutched her
mouth in one hand and her stomach in the other, and ran for a bucket. She had been feeling absolutely terrible the
past few days, and had only really noticed it when she had ceased worrying
about Gohan. Trunks had been to visit
Bulma, and had told her all about how her brave boy and that little girl had
beaten Cell and collapsed with exhaustion. He, himself had almost died due to one of that monster's attacks, but
the caped girls that she had seen through the crystal ball had healed him. That was where her little Gohan was now; at
some lodge in the mountains with a bunch of strangers. Boy had she been angry that Trunks hadn't
taken her with, but her father had somehow convinced her that Gohan would be
fine…she had a feeling that both he and her husband were in good hands. She just hoped that those she-devils had
kept their hands off her husband, but she couldn't worry about that right
now…she had a feeling that Gohan would be coming home soon; probably tomorrow,
she decided. With that comforting
thought, she drifted into a peaceful slumber.
******
Goku, along
with King Kai, Bubbles, and Gregory, made his way closer to the end of his
journey.
The Five High Judges, hmm? he pondered, well I never.
"Hey King Kai,"
he voiced his thoughts, "What are these Five High Judges like anyway?"
King Kai paused
for a second. "Well, Goku," he answered
seriously, "I'm not really sure. But I
should imagine that they are extremely stern and serious and don't miss a single
detail." He ended in a foreboding
climax, as they reached the crest of a hill.
"Well King Kai," chortled Goku, not at all
phased by the warning, "I suppose I won't have to wonder too much
longer…look!" He pointed down the
descending path towards a massive cloud bank that crossed Snake Way. The clouds were bright orange and yellow and
stood towering in the near distance. In
the centre, where the road ended, pure gold glinted in the shape of a gigantic
arch. King Kai, Bubbles and Gregory all
gaped, their jaw hanging far lower than usual. Goku, goofy grin present, scratched the back of his head.
"Gosh King
Kai," he said seriously, "I'm really sorry you had to be here and see
this. Oh well, I guess that blowing up
your planet was unstoppable, but if it hadn't been, then I never would have
made you come to this place…Hey!" his voice suddenly brightened
enthusiastically, "Bubbles, Gregory, race ya!" Goku took off towards the golden gateway, Bubbles and Gregory trailing;
protesting at his head start.
King Kai's jaw
dropped even further as he watched Goku shout words of encouragement to his
comrades. That man never ceases to amaze me! He scratched his head…racing
to the gates of the Other World to have his soul weighed by the Five High
Judges…never in my life… he trailed off as he watched his crazy friends run
off into the distance…Oh what the heck… "Hey
you guys," he called, "wait for me!" and followed them at the fastest trot his
stubbie legs would allow.
******
Gohan and Nahmi
were once again exposed to the chill of the wintry air, beneath the shelter of
the pillared terrace. Between them,
they bore the weight of the tiny space capsule.
"Argh," Gohan
grunted, "It's so heavy." He rested it
on his leg, rubbed his hands together, and gave it a great heave so as to gain
a better grip. "Come on, we have to get
this to Bulma's quick." Nahmi gave him
a small nod of determination and they quickly took to the chilly, night air. Gohan had no idea of what direction to take,
and flew slightly slower in his confusion. Nahmi, noticing this, called out to him.
"We'll follow
the river downstream," she cried over the roar of the waterfall. The water churned loudly beneath them as
they soon found themselves speeding along the icy depths of the gorge. Nahmi gazed at the stars as they flew low
over the raging current. There were
approximately two hours left until dawn; Indigo would be waking soon. The narrow ravine had slowly begun to widen
noticeably, and soon they were between the more distant walls of what was almost
a valley, flying over a wide and shallow river. Nahmi slowed hastily so as to grab Gohan's attention and silently
pointed out their route. They soared
upwards out of the ravine and took a course that continued forward, while the
now wind-touched and snow covered valley curved to the right.
On they flew,
away from the snow, past the barren, brown ranges, until they reached the
forest vales of the mountains graced with evergreens. Here Nahmi paused and looked to the sky for guidance once more. Gohan too gazed at the beautiful, clear
night sky, but all he saw were stars; billions of twinkling stars, shining like
diamonds in a forbidden gem field. He
sighed and turned his gaze upon Nahmi. Concentration was wrought on her face and her eyes darted from cluster
to cluster. Relief suddenly swept
through her eyes and she grinned at Gohan.
"That way," she
pointed across a vast terrain of shallow dales and farming land.
"Where are we
headed?" Gohan asked her, astonished by her capabilities to judge direction. He knew that they were going to Capsule
Corporations, but he doubted that Nahmi knew in which direction it was
situated.
Her brows
furrowed and her eyes flashed with contempt. "To the desert where we battled Cell," she answered, her eyes suddenly
gleaming with that familiar look of determination, "You should be able to find
your way to Bulma's from there, shouldn't you? Because from there on; I'm lost."
"Well yeah,"
Gohan replied, slightly confused, "but how did you know the way to the battle field?"
She grinned at
him, eyes closed, "The stars silly!" she giggled, "You didn't just think I was
just admiring them this whole time did you?"
"Well no,"
Gohan replied, slightly unsure and obviously embarrassed. He thought it best to distract the attention
from himself. "Wow, that's neat," he
exclaimed hurriedly, "you'll have to teach me someday." Despite his shame, it was admiration that
channelled itself through his voice. Nahmi smiled sweetly.
"Deal," she
nodded, "but right now, we gotta hurry; this thing is killing me." She lifted her end of the pod slightly in
indication, and grinned meekly.
"Yeah," Gohan
agreed, suddenly remembering the immense weight of their burden, and their ki's
blazed as they headed toward the battlefield. Gohan quickly found himself straining slightly to keep up with Nahmi's
incredible pace.
She's
amazing; he marvelled,
as he gazed absentmindedly at the patchwork quilt of the fields below, her
power may be equal to mine, but there's no way I could be equal to her. She can do everything! Man, I must look like a total amateur to
her!
"Your not an
amateur Gohan," he
heard the familiar voice in his head and started. Nahmi giggled, like she tended to so often.
"Geez
Nahmi," Gohan grumbled,
slightly embarrassed, "I wish you wouldn't do that to me!" I hope she didn't
hear anything else, he thought to himself.
"Sorry," she giggled, "I was just going to
ask; where to now?"
"Huh!" Gohan stopped suddenly and peered more
attentively at the ground. He hadn't
even noticed that they had been slowing steadily from the time that Nahmi had
seen the desert in the distance. "We're here already?" he exclaimed. He had been so lost in his thoughts that he had barely even noticed his
surroundings, but sure enough, the desolation of their battle with Cell now lay
beneath them.
"Uh-huh," she grinned. She couldn't help but laugh at Gohan, but she quickly replied to
his exclamation. "Cell wasn't too far from the branch of the low mountains
that we just came from."
Gohan gazed at his surroundings in awe. The entire mountain that Cell had stood atop
of had been completely destroyed. Great
canyons scarred the land that was now littered with gigantic boulders. Gohan reflected on the attack that he had
hurled at Cell. He couldn't help but
think that he had been pushing some kind of limit, and that, had Cell been more
powerful, he would have broken beyond the boundaries of it and become more
powerful than he could have ever believed possible.
"Yeah," Nahmi agreed solemnly, causing Gohan to
snap to attention, "I felt that too." She paused for a second as she gathered her thoughts. "If we had have pushed ourselves any
further…" she paused again as though concentrating. "Well," she sighed disappointedly, "I
can't explain it, but if either one of us had been forced to fight him alone, I
think we still could have beaten him…"
"Mmm," Gohan nodded, "I could feel a strange
power inside of me when I burst out with rage, but I never even began to touch
on using it…"
"Me
neither," Nahmi agreed
and turned her gaze to the stars. She
noticed that they were slightly dimmer than the last time she had stared into
their fiery depths. "Gosh
Gohan," she cried aloud in shock, breaking the telepathic link, "we've got to
hurry. No one knows where you are, right?" She didn't allow him time to answer, her
voice hinting her panic. "So you have
to get back to them before they wake up; they would never leave without you." With that, Gohan peered at the landmarks and
swivelled decidedly to the left.
"This way," he
shouted, pointing. They were quickly
flying in the direction of Capsule Corporations, and more importantly,
Bulma. "It's not far now," Gohan cried,
turning to Nahmi, and gave her a reassuring grin.
******
Gohan and Nahmi
landed lightly on the dewy grass out the front of Capsule Corporations. Holding the pod between them, they swiftly
ran up to the door. They placed it
carefully on the doormat, and sighed with relief as they were finally released
from the burden of the weight of the capsule. Gohan raised his fists to bang on the door, but suddenly paused.
"On second
thoughts," he exclaimed and took a step backwards, "Hang on a second, I won't
be long." He grinned and waved as he
took to the air and flew around the curved building and out of sight.
Nahmi gazed
around in wonder. Everything was so
unfamiliar to her; the strange buildings; the artificial lights; the
unwholesome smells that had wafted throughout the air; the annoying noises that
penetrated every corner of the mind; and the sheer size of what Gohan had
called the city. Now that she was
alone, she couldn't help but reflect upon what she had tried so hard to
ignore. She bitterly thought the sight
of the city to be the most horrible experience of her entire life. It appeared to be quite pleasant at Capsule
Corp, but in the city everything had been so terrible. They hadn't even flown near it; they had
remained quite a distance above it, but Nahmi had somehow seen everything. People covered in dirt and dressed in shabby
clothes slept dreamlessly in the gutter while others lurked in alleyways
brandishing what looked suspiciously to be knives. It had suddenly occurred to Nahmi how selfish humans must be, to
allow their garbage to litter their disgusting cities, and to hide like cowards
in alleys with weapons of destruction. She didn't understand how she had seen all this; it was impossible for
her eyes to have focussed on objects at such a distance. It had seemed to be in her mind, flashes of
horror that corrupted her peaceful heart. With one glimpse of the city, she had somehow been exposed to all the
horrors of the human race. Her mind was
in torture; she couldn't comprehend how humans could do such things to their
own world and their own race. Indigo
had shown her love, saving her from the evil that had engulfed her heart long
ago, but a dark shadow had lingered. Something from her past was awakening inside of her; an old feeling that
she had managed to contain for so long. She shut her eyes; terrible images flashing before them, and a silver
tear rolled off her cheek and landed on her capsule. A terrible feeling of mistrust was creeping over her, which she
struggled to suppress for fear of awakening her feelings from the past. She trembled with fear as tears streamed
from her sapphire eyes. She should
never have come; she should have stayed in the mountains like Indigo had always
told her. She couldn't return to what
she had been long ago; she couldn't allow herself to hurt Indigo, or any of her
race, like that again…
******
"Whoa man,
check it out!" A man with a dopey voice stopped short with surprise.
"Keep your god
damn voice down!" his partner scolded in a harsh, rusty voice.
"Alright,
alright, don't get your knickers in a knot…" the first man conceded, "I was
just gonna say; what do you reckon that is?" He pointed towards something, around the corner of the illuminated
street, that glinted in the light.
His partner
gaped at the object and suddenly smirked. "I don't know what it is, but godammit, you don't get anywhere in this
business without being able to tell what that stuff is…even if it is…" he
lowered his sunglasses, "…covered in some clear, protective coating."
The first man
laughed stupidly. "Gee Boss, you're
good."
His smirk
grew. "That's why I'm the Boss."
"Yes Sir!" the
first man said, chuckling. His
expression suddenly changed as he appeared to notice something else. "Uh Boss?"
He grunted in
reply.
"So what do we
do about the girl?"
The Boss simply
smirked even more widely, and pushed up his sunglasses with a fingertip. He reached inside his cloak and the other
man grinned evilly in acknowledgement and did likewise. The Boss revealed a long knife; his partner
pulled out a baseball club.
"I'll go
back-up," the boss replied, and they both melted into the shadows.
******
A sudden rustle
of leaves registered on Nahmi's senses. She wiped the tears from her eyes to clear her vision and swung around
to the direction of the noise…but it was too late. A sudden whoosh separated the air and something of a pale brown
colour contacted painfully with her head. She fell to the ground in excruciating pain and reached her hand to her
head, blood trickling over her eyelids. She wiped it away, struggling to remain conscious, and gazed blearily at
her attacker. A massive, bald hulk of a
man kicked her out of his path. She
couldn't move; she could feel herself slipping away. Suddenly, a tall, thin man in a black cloak and black sunglasses,
with brown hair pulled tightly away from his face in a ponytail, stood over her
with a knife. Her eyelids were so
heavy, but she forced them open, only to see him smirk in her face. A cruel, rusty voice echoed faintly in her
head "Anything for that much silver…you understand, don't you hon?" She heard a cruel and deceitful laugh and
saw the man's hand reach towards her forehead, before she could no longer hold
her eyelids up and slipped into unconsciousness.
******
"Bulma! Bulma Wake Up! Wake Up!" Gohan
banged his fists on Bulma's window. "Bulma!" His shoulders slumped in
disappointment. This had been about the
hundredth time that he had called her name and his fists were growing sore and
his voice raspy. There's no use,
she'll never wake up…hey, wait a minute… an idea had suddenly struck
him. He swiftly decided to act upon it
and rapped lightly on the window. "Hey
Mom. Wake up; it's me, Trunks."
The window
opened so suddenly that Gohan jumped back.
"Trunks?" a
bleary-eyed, messy-haired Bulma questioned.
"Hi Bulma!"
Gohan greeted her casually as though hovering at her window was a common
practice.
"Gohan?" she
questioned, now confused. She leaned
out her window, placing one hand to her forehead, and peered in every
direction. "Where'd Trunks go?"
"Ah," Gohan was
put on the spot. He hadn't considered
how Bulma would react if Trunks weren't there as promised. If he told her the truth, she would slam the
window shut on him. If he told her that
Trunks left, she would slam the window shut on him. He had to think quickly. "He'll be back in a minute – can I come in?"
Her senses were
awakening; she wasn't as stupid as Gohan was treating her. She raised an eyebrow suspiciously;
something was definitely fishy about his story. "What are you two doing back here this early anyway?"
"Look Bulma,"
he said, slightly annoyed that she was slowing the operation down, "this is
urgent. I had to pretend I was Trunks
so you would wake up." Why didn't I
just say that it was urgent in the first place? Gohan scolded himself.
"Oh, okay then,
come in," she said, astonished. Gee,
it must be urgent, she thought as she stepped aside to let Gohan
through the window, Gohan wouldn't play a cheap trick like that without a
good reason. Poor little thing was
probably banging on my window for ages before he decided to do something like
that.
Gohan hurriedly explained everything to Bulma.
"So you're her
only hope of finding out about her family," Gohan finished solemnly.
"Oh," she gazed
at the ground, chewing her thumbnail, "that's so sad."
"Will you do it
Bulma?" asked Gohan in a pleading voice, "will you find a way to find out what
the message is?"
She looked up
at him and smiled, "Let's have a look at this thing shall we! Meet you at the front door!" Gohan nodded and gave her a small grin, and
took off out the window.
Such a sweet
little kid, Bulma
thought to herself.
******
Bulma opened the front door to her home, to
find a sight that was enough to terrify any mother.
"Someone attacked her!" Gohan turned to Bulma, tears in his young eyes. He was bent over Nahmi and had obviously been trying to wake her. Blood was smeared across his hands from when he had wrapped a pink cloth around the girl's head. "She's unconscious and hurt pretty bad," he revealed Nahmi's bleeding head, "and the pod's been stolen!"
by Lolli
