Chapter 6
Axle could almost see the psychological tumble behind Nail's eyes as they widened in comprehension. He went rigid in her arms, and she reluctantly detached herself from his frozen embrace, as the moment had ended - probably for the better, though her hormones screamed otherwise.
He blinked, and brought his hands up to his head. "Why would he not tell me?"
She sympathized with him. The alpha son. The one to replace Guru in leadership and wisdom, and his father had deliberately kept one, vital bit of information from him.
Namekians were a dual-gendered species. Not single.
Nail's face transformed into consternation, and he began to pace. "I don't understand why he wouldn't tell me!"
Axle was just beginning to comprehend the possible repercussions of her getting stranded here. And they weren't pretty. "I'm sure he had reasons, Nail," she said, wishing suddenly that she could go back and undo the kiss.
Frowning, he glanced at her and then did a double take. Then, without explanation, he strode up to her and hooked her in his arm. Axle yelped as he leapt into the air, clutching to him for dear life.
"What are you doing?" she screamed, torn between smacking him upside the head and burying her face in his chest for going so high.
"I need to speak with Guru," he replied stiffly, "And you're coming with me."
She shut her eyes as a bout of vertigo passed, and thumped his chest with her fists. "I can fly on my own!" she yelled.
"You're too slow."
"And you're too high!"
With a muttered incoherency, he dropped altitude abruptly, making her squeak with fright. When they leveled out, Axle was two seconds away from knocking his mojo up between his shoulders.
"Nail, look at me!"
"No."
Still dizzy, she growled, and clutched his jaw in her fingers, tilting it down until he angrily met her eyes. "Don't you dare make me a scapegoat for something Guru did. It's not my fault," she seethed against the peeling air friction.
His expression was unreadable, and after a moment he jerked his head back, and stared ahead. Biting back a retort, she contemplated that Nail had mastered the art of discipline in regards to every aspect of his life. Suddenly throwing libido into his controlled regimen was bound to confuse him, conflict him… His callused behavior made sense.
But no one treated Axle with disrespect. No one. "You have three seconds to put me down," she said lowly. Dangerously.
He ignored her.
She counted. Then she none-too-gently kneed him in the crotch. He gasped and spat, dropping her. She swore as the ground came up too quickly, and rolled when she hit. Stopping in a crouch, she watched as he thumped down a few yards before her, clutching at his gut.
She could hear his growl even before he stood shakily to his feet, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks in his ire. The snarl on his face almost stole her courage as he staggered towards her.
Good going, Axle, she berated herself. He was already agitated from your hormonal sandblasting, and then you went and added insult to injury by physically attacking him.
She added crazily that she might want to keep her stupid mistakes to one per day. The namekian warrior was crazed.
"Get a hold of yourself, Nail!" she reprimanded, having no effect on his approaching figure whatsoever. "Nail!"
He was closing in. She was a mercenary. She'd seen what happened when violence and sex mixed, and the fanged look on his face told her she was in trouble. He leapt. She unlatched her emulsifier, aimed and fired.
It blew his leg clear off below the kneecap.
"Nnnngh GAH!" He screamed and crumpled in the grass, clutching at his thigh. His breaths came and went in snarling rasps, as feral as a rabid predator. "Axle!"
She stood over him, steeling her resolve, and aimed her gun at his other calve. "No one takes me somewhere against my will," she said evenly, feeling a lot less confident that she sounded. "I'll follow you to Guru's at a distance. If you move to attack me again, I'll gimp your ass. Understood?"
She knew he could kill her outright if he wanted to, but she counted on his better nature. Even teetering on sanity's edge, Nail seemed incapable of murder. His scowl didn't lessen, but a dim remnant of his former self flitted across his eyes, and he nodded through the pain.
"Regenerate," she said.
Grimacing, he threw his head back and roared. She winced at the wet, fleshy sound of a regenerating limb, and watched in morbid curiosity as a new blood-coated leg sprouted below his knee. After taking a moment to catch his breath, Nail stood to his feet. He wouldn't meet her eyes after that.
She hopped up into the sky after him, at a much slower pace. Watching his bowed head from behind, Axle felt an acute despair well up inside of her, recalling that mere minutes earlier he had been the most amiable, charming male she'd ever met.
And then she turned his world upside down.
.
Axle touched down after Nail in the entrance of the isolated dome on a plateau. She'd been so distracted over her conflicted feelings for him that she neglected to prepare herself for meeting Guru, himself.
Etrack had told her a few things about him; his gentle nature, his gigantism, his solitude on planet Namek after the virus… It was an image of a frightened, tormented youth. That was why, when she entered, she was taken aback by the prehistoric mound of layering flesh that peeked at her through narrowed slits.
"Guru…" she breathed.
The Father of the namekians seemed to ponder her appearance, though his range of expression was limited, as his face was weighted down by folds of skin.
Nail had neglected to make introductions as it seemed he was tongue-tied as to what accusation to make first. But there was no need. Guru was quick on the uptake.
"The alien female," he drawled out in a deep, bass whoom as he observed her. She shifted uncomfortably under his scrutinizing stare. After a moment, he continued. "I believed you to be from Rameumptum."
She swallowed. "I am."
"Hmmm…" his voice resounded against the walls of the dome. "Rameumptumites don't have ears…"
Axle held her breath as Guru sniffed the air, his massive brow creasing significantly in the center. He suddenly became alarmed, almost panicked.
"Namekian pheromones…" he stammered. "Whose blood courses through your veins, female?" The question was urgent. At her hesitation, he outright yelled. "WHOSE!"
"Etrack's!" she cried in response. She could have hit him and had the same effect. Guru flinched and rolled back. His face began to tremble, and Nail took a step forward, visibly concerned for the Father's well being.
"You must be isolated!" the imposing figure declared, spittle frothing on his wrinkled mouth. "Foolish creature. You should have told us!"
Despite his intimidating presence, she still saw Guru through Etrack's eyes; a young, abandoned namekian with more responsibility than he'd ever wanted. It made it easy for her to speak her mind. "My heritage is none of your business!"
"Your heritage is capable of bringing ruin to a perfect race!"
"An incomplete race!" she countered. "Of sexually repressed males without their natural counterparts!"
Nail's head swiveled on his neck and he gawked at her, no doubt shocked at her complete lack of respect for someone they revered as a deity.
Guru's jaw quivered in suppressed fury, speechless. Still emotionally bruised from what had happened with Nail, she decided to fill the silence.
"I was content to dwell in solitude until you could wish me off this twisted planet, remember? It was your idea of awesome brilliance to send your alpha son to hound me every damned day for alien bonding!"
Nail choked. Guru fumed. And Axle turned on her heel and strode for the doorway, tossing over her shoulder, "I'll stay away from your boys, Guru. And you tell them to stay away from me." Then she faced him one last time, noticing as she did that Nail's expression had gone from angered shock to muted anguish. "But I suggest you wish back my crew and ship as soon as possible, as a handful of your prime sons have discovered what jealousy is, firsthand."
With that she hopped up into the sky, heading towards a remote grotto Nail had shown her once in the wooded area of Namek. With the confrontation over, Axle had no more defenses against the hurt in her chest, which was somehow connected to her tear ducts, and the lump in her throat.
The last time she'd felt anything close to such heartache, was when Rameumptum officials showed up on her doorstep to inform her that her mother had died.
She blinked back the water standing in her eyes. It didn't make sense.
.
Guru knew he had to calm his anxiety, or he might end up leaving this dimension a few years early. With a great shuddering breath, he forced himself to relax. The female had left. Hopefully the damage caused by her presence was minimal…isolated.
Then he saw Nail's bowed form; clenched fists, jumping jaw muscles, hissing breath…
"Nail…"
The young warrior's shoulders rose with tension at hearing his name, and it pained Guru, more than words could express, to see his alpha son so miserable.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Nail asked in a raw, accusing voice.
After a moment's hesitation, Guru decided Nail was entitled to the withheld information. All of it. "There were females before the virus," he said slowly, being hit with a sudden excruciating memory that he'd buried long ago. "My…sister…died in my arms…"
Nail looked up at that, sympathy mixed in with his angst. Guru cleared his throat, and winced at the sting in his eyes. "But I was unable to produce females," he continued mournfully, "so I kept it from you, my son. One day you may understand the love a parent…has for his children. I didn't want any of you to feel that you were flawed. Incomplete."
Instead of arguing or hurling accusations, Nail plunked down on the floor, and buried his head in his hands. The gesture was without words, but Guru felt as though he'd just disowned him.
"The repression of your desire was thinly maintained," the patriarch continued, hoping to soothe his son with information. Hoping that it could somehow replace the trust that had been tainted. "It was secure only in a world where there were no female namekian pheromones to undo it."
Nail snorted. "Well, it's undone now," he said. "Is this what you had in mind when you told me to spend time with the female, father?"
Guru winced at his son's uncharacteristic bitterness. His own drive had dissipated long ago with age, but he remembered the potency of such primal urges… "She's affected you…"
His shoulders sagged somewhat and he lifted his head, fixing his gaze on some random point in the room. "I can't stop…thinking about her."
It's what Guru had been afraid of. "And your brothers, Nail?"
His eyes widened then as though he'd just figured out a great puzzle, and he met Guru's concerned stare. "A few. At least. The-"
"Warrior brethren," Guru finished for him.
Nail nodded. "There's been a tension between the fellow mentors and I for some time."
"You all covet each others' time with the alien female…"
Nail looked ill, and nodded.
"Mmmm…" Guru ignored the pangs of guilt for having encouraged them to familiarize with her. For not meeting their visitor first to approve her involvement with his children. "When we use the dragonballs to wish back her comrades and ship, I want you to use the third wish to replace the magical threading that she has weakened in you and your brothers. To return you to how you were."
Nail clenched his eyes shut, his usual smooth face creased with sorrow lines. Guru knew that he was conflicted - knowing he needed to adhere to the logic behind Guru's directive while wanting to keep both the desire that made him whole, and the female he'd fallen in love with.
Yes, Guru realized. He loves her. Recalling the sentiment in namekians before the virus, Guru knew the look well. After all, the lad had spent every day with the alien since she arrived, enjoying her company on several levels before his body even learned to enjoy her proximity.
"I'm so sorry, my son," he said, nearly weeping with the words. "In meaning well, sometimes a parent does more harm, than good. Even me."
Nail looked up at that, opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again. He sighed heavily and shook his head. After several moments of indecision, he stood to his feet and walked dejectedly towards the exit.
"Nail…"
He went rigid, and turned his head only enough to see Guru out of the corner of his eye. His lips were pursed.
"She can't stay, Nail."
"I know that," he whispered, bowing his head.
"The more time you spend with her, the more difficult it will be when she goes," Guru continued, watching his reaction carefully. "But I won't stop you if you decide to be with her until then."
Words that he'd intended for reassurance only seemed to anguish his son more. After pained silence, Nail spoke without turning around. "I don't trust myself around her, Father," he said, his voice tortured. "These sensations are confusing me. They make me…irrational."
Guru sat back, alarmed. If the sudden onslaught of physical desire could overwhelm even his most disciplined of warriors, it made him realize that things could have been much much worse. He was grateful they had isolated her before there were any real altercations between his children over her presence, and wondered just how close they had come to outright war.
But Guru trusted Nail - more than the youth trusted himself. "It is your decision, son."
He could see Nail's shoulders rise and sink with each breath, and after several seconds, the conflicted warrior walked stiffly out of the dome and hopped into the sky. He hadn't even bid his father farewell.
When he was gone, Guru wept for his own short sightedness, and the pain he'd caused his alpha child. And he prayed to Porunga that the damage left in the alien's wake would somehow mend with time.
