Mental

06: Paranoia

a DBZ fanfiction by Rivka Aes Sedai of the Green Ajah (aka LadyRivka)

No author's notes this time…except thank you to Aerith Gainesborough for plugging this fic!!

They looked around, the ex-monk and the crippled teenager, to find nothing.

The warehouse now seemed eerily empty…but they knew who was out there. Who was lurking in the shadows. Who wanted the blonde girl dead.

Dr. Gero. To name him brought unspeakable nightmares into this place, a taint on #18's mind. And the Dark Lady, his servant.

Kuririn crept slowly about the main area of the warehouse, pushing Miki in front of him. She looked up at him, her eyes seeming just as innocent and frightened as they were when she was a little girl in pigtails.

"Where..is..he…?" she whispered.

"I can't sense him," shrugged Kuririn. Ki in this place, inside of someone else's mind, was hard to trace and even harder to use. You had to survive by your wits.

"Then what's the use of us trying to find him?"

"Are you saying this is futile?" Kuririn screamed. "I'm trying to save your life here!"

"Don't know if you can," she shrugged.

"MIKI!!!!" he snapped. "What the hell are you thinking?"

"I've been here longer than you have. Save your heroics." Miki pushed her chair away from Kuririn, into the next alcove.

Kuririn moaned and slumped down to the floor.

--

Miki turned the corner, to find a long-haired male figure standing there, slouching over, as if bored and expecting something…

Or someone.

"Shi-Shigeru-kun? That you?" she giggled. She knew her brother anywhere.

The figure moved closer to her. It looked like her brother, but it had this aura of coldness about it…

And the eyes. Almond-shaped, silver-blue, inhuman, in contrast to the warm brown eyes she had known all of her life.

"Sh-Shigeru??"

"I am not he who you speak of. However, a part of me recognizes you as my sister. You must join me. Come with me, and you will have infinite power thanks to Dr. Gero."

"No!"

"Tsk, tsk. Always taking the hard way out." Then, with one deft punch, the hybrid known as #17 knocked Miki out cold and dragged her behind him to where Gero was lurking.

Kuririn was still squatting on the floor, scared. He had fought Frieza, one of the most tyrannical beings to ever live; what was he cowering about? For Kami's sake, he was in a girl's mind!! Not on some battlefield!

So why was he so scared?

Interrupting his thoughts was Miki's wheelchair, rolling out of an alcove not twenty feet from him…

Empty.

And behind him materialized Dark Lady. He did not know this until the same Bowie knife pressed to Miki's neck earlier was pressed to his….

"I want my blood," she purred. "Miki isn't here, the nice doctor took her away. I guess in order for our plans to be executed, you must die…."

Kuririn gulped and tried sending a distress signal to Bulma via the EEG….

END CHAPTER 6

Chapter 7- Will Kuririn get out? Will Bulma pay attention? What about the villainy of #18's mind? How will I end this evil cliffhanger???