Chapter 12
Piccolo felt himself slip under the onslaught of her advances, her intoxicating, feminine scent numbing his awareness. The way she moved against him, the way she touched him, the way she kissed his mouth…all spurred on a lapse of control in an otherwise disciplined being. He dropped his hands to her waist to push her away, but they disobeyed him completely, and clutched her to him instead. And Axle was more than just warm.
She was utterly consuming…
His lids fluttered as she nipped at his neck, and his eyes rolled back with his conscience. Thoughts of 'This is wrong. I have to stop her' were gradually, disturbingly replaced by much darker sentiments,
She wants me. I have every right to experience this. I am entitled to take it.
Startled, he blinked, and tried to focus through her touch. But the reasoning continued, sounding unexpectedly dangerous…heady…rational…
I was destined for greatness. Those weaker succumb before me. The female is fortunate to have found my favor.
I am the Demon King.
Piccolo opened his eyes, or rather, he tried to but they wouldn't obey him. Can't be…
He tried to extract himself from her embrace, but instead his body ignored him. Panic cascaded over him like an electrifying waterfall as he realized what was happening.
The transition from evil to good had never been easy, so Piccolo had stuck to the basics - saving the earth. That was the right thing to do. Simple. Black and white. Cut and dry.
But years of vicious and malevolent conditioning that began long before he was even born, were still there - gray areas that weren't so easily mastered. Like social graces, sympathy, intimacies… Still too often, he was prone to violence. It's why he avoided people. He couldn't trust himself to be nice. Piccolo, the repentant villain was still a monster in too many ways.
He wasn't mean out of habit.
He was mean out of nature, and Axle's advances had just triggered his tightly suppressed baser disposition. And coupled with his father's memories, it now had its own sinister personality.
Oh shit…
An ambiguous sensation not unlike when Nail had taken control of his body swamped him, and he was swept away in indecision. There were no moments of clarity, only intoxicating levels of arousal interspersed with rallying declarations of who he really was…friend or demon.
And inevitably, with all the backing of this heated encounter, the demon was winning.
Holding onto his spirit of discernment, Piccolo fought it. But it turned out that his darker nature wasn't the only thing he needed to battle in that moment.
Don't touch her! Came Nail's frenzied scream as the warrior broke through the repression. She's mine!
Whatever hold he had, he lost it, and once again began to fade. Shut up, Nail! He sent frantically, as he scrambled for purchase. Shut the hell up!
But Nail continued to thrash his awareness with a crazed anxiety, scattering his persona while the demon took over his body. I'll make you crazy! Do you hear me?
Piccolo's consciousness flickered like a candle, and it terrified him. You fool! If you do this to me now, then she'll really be in trouble!
But Nail was too far gone to hear his words, for the last ones would have surely stopped him. Instead he continued the hounding.
PICCOLO!
Unable to fight his darker self and Nail, Piccolo did the only thing he could do. He abandoned his attempt to regain himself momentarily and attacked Nail's maddened consciousness head on.
NO! came the discouraged plea, but Piccolo hurled all his conscious weight at the spastic warrior. His sanity was in the balance, along with Axle's virtue. And Nail was understandably beyond reason.
It was a struggle, interrupted with an enraptured cognizance of what Axle was doing with his body. The turban came off. The cape. She'd laid him back, her full weight atop him, tugging at his clothes. And the demon moved with her, responding, encouraging... The sensations were getting so euphoric that Piccolo wondered why the hell he was fighting it.
But that small part of him that said 'no' pushed him through the motions, and Piccolo stomped at Nail, squishing him under his mental force. And finally, finally, the warrior dissipated…
To nothing…
He felt the void where Nail had been leech at his spirit like a great black hole. Instead of feeling more focused…stronger…he felt vacuous…weak… He would have wept had his eyes been his own. Nail… What have I done…? An audible moan startled him out of his fishtailing guilt, along with the assault of fevered inclinations that he much rather go along with than deny.
Axle ripped the 'V' of his shirt all the way down to his waist and slipped her hands inside to caress his chest. He damn near lost his hold.
You don't need to stop, Piccolo, the Demon King purred in a strangled tone meant to be subtle. Good or evil, you want thissss…
But it isn't right… he countered reflexively, finding sudden strength in the words. It's not right! Then, more forcefully, I denounce you! You're not who I am!
Gathering what was left of himself, he flung his conscious energies at the seedy instincts and conditioned evil, denying them place in the forefront of his mind. Then with a strength born of desperation, he cried out and drove through his wavering malevolence, shattering it. The fragments of his darker self were dispersed…but still there.
As a matter of fact, this whole ordeal had given his baser nature alarming strength and it lingered, more comfortable and natural in his skin than the person he'd become.
But despite it all, the fog in his mind cleared, and his better half regained control of his body - barely - just as his hands were fumbling to undo the laces of her vest.
"Axle," he choked, and with great effort moved his hands to her shoulders, lifting her off him. Her heavy-lidded eyes fixed on him, her cheeks still flushed. She frowned.
Panting, he lifted his head and locked stares with her. He opened his mouth, but the words couldn't make it past his constricted throat.
She sat back, and he grunted with her shift in weight. Her eyes narrowed as she scrutinized him, and after several moments of strained silence, they widened in horrified comprehension.
"Piccolo…" she whispered, the color draining from her face. He pursed his lips and nodded. A small whimper escaped her lips and she fell on his chest, thumping his ribs softly with her fists.
"Why?" she hissed. "How could you do that to him?"
Still doing battle with the demon, and very aware of her touch, he let his head fall back on the cold tile and clamped a hand wearily over his eyes. "Leave me," he breathed. Don't go. "Hurry." Stay.
She sat back up, her visage abruptly furious with betrayal. Again, he was amazed at how quickly she shifted through emotions. "You selfish, opportunistic bastard…" she dropped into a different language at this point, sputtering and fuming. Piccolo could only assume her words were expletives.
And for some demented reason, it turned him on. He caught her mid rant and rolled her underneath him, holding his mouth to her ear. "Go," he breathed, taking a sick delight in her immediate rigidity. "Now."
Her breath caught in her throat, and he could almost hear her gut twisting in knots at his sudden change in demeanor. Quick on the uptake, Axle recoiled from him.
Oh yes, he sent silently. You'd be wise to fear me.
"Get off me," she said.
With one last inhalation of her scent, he ambled to the side and she flipped to her feet and backed away from him. He held his breath for the three seconds it took her to assess his capacity for danger, and forced himself to look down at the tile as she trotted away, the soft patter of her running footsteps notifying him of her departure.
She disappeared into one of the domes, and Piccolo was left alone out on the Lookout. He had hoped her absence would alleviate his inner struggle. He had counted on it. But the Demon King would not so easily be ignored.
His vision turned red, reminiscent of blood once shed…promising blood yet spilt. The air whistled in and out of his clenched teeth, and he curled into a ball, trying to suppress the malevolent awareness that was probing at his mind like a taunt. The malignant personality decided to don his father's loathsome, gravelly voice. And it resounded in his head like deep reverberating death sentence.
You've been fooling yourself, boy. This isn't who you are.
Piccolo gasped at the potency of his words. "I worked so hard to control you," he growled at his darker self in between great guttural breaths. "How can you be so strong after all this time?"
You can't negate your heritage, son. You can't forswear your destiny.
The words sounded so wrong, but he couldn't deny the logic behind them. It felt as though someone were ripping his soul in half. Had these past years truly been in vain? Had he really invested so much effort into becoming a person he couldn't be? He looked at his hands, which were oscillating in inches, and he clenched them tight, the denial on his lips.
"You're wrong!" he spat. "I'm no longer your pawn."
There must needs be opposition in all things. YOU are that opposition. That balance. It is your place. To fight structure. His voice took on a more sinister tone. To take what you want from those weaker…
He dug his talons into the crunching tile as his darker self replayed for him the intimate details of his past few minutes with Axle with relentless clarity.
He shuddered, trying to fight his body's automatic response. "I won't harm her!"
Return…
"Never!"
He stood shakily, great rasping breaths hunching his form. In a last ditch effort to redefine who he'd become, to realize that his life wasn't one big lie, he grasped onto the one concept that he couldn't deny. The single absolute in his world of chaos. Something that required live action over psychological battles.
Saving the earth. Black and white. The right thing to do. Now. This very second.
Holding onto his train of thought with desperate tenacity, Piccolo powered up and shot off the platform in a death plunge, heading as fast as his elevated speed would carry him. Straight towards Cell.
So crazed was he, that Piccolo barely noticed the cooler-than-usual sensation of the wind on his face as it dried the wet lines on his cheeks.
So crazed was he, that Piccolo barely cared.
.
Gohan sat bolt upright in bed. He looked around the darkened room with his blood roaring in his ears, trying to pinpoint what had woken him. And then he homed in on the distancing ki… Or rather, the distancing, powered-up ki.
Piccolo…
He scrambled to his feet and ran to the door only to find the alien female cowered down with her arms wrapped around her knees. She looked up at him, and his first reaction was that it looked almost unnatural to see such a sturdy creature cry.
At his unasked question, she exhaled a shuddering breath and spoke. "I thought he was Nail," she choked, her voice ragged. "And it…broke him."
Gohan didn't understand her words, but he didn't care to. Piccolo was in trouble. That was enough. Still in his pajamas, he jetted for the edge of the Lookout and burst off in the direction of his first, and truest friend, shifting through the levels of transformation as quickly as his body would allow.
.
Several other individuals were alerted at the sudden, immense power up, not the slowest of which being Goku. His eyes flung open in the darkness, absently aware of the raven-haired vixen curled against his chest. His heart was palpitating in his ears, and it only took a moment to pinpoint the surge of energy as Piccolo.
And he was heading towards Cell.
With a quick pained look at his sleeping Chi Chi, he quietly extracted himself from her arms and hastily dressed. Then, utilizing quite possibly the most useful technique he'd ever learned, he held his fingers to his forehead, and transmitted himself to where Piccolo was.
.
Goku materialized right in front of the speeding namekian, and grunted with the impact as Piccolo barreled right into him. With a growl, he flung Goku aside and pushed through.
"Piccolo!"
The warrior only shrank in his sight as he put alarming amounts of distance between them in such a short amount of time. Goku had to power up considerably to catch him, and when he did, he had to bracket the namekian from behind, pinning his arms to his sides. Piccolo roared and twisted in his grip like a cat in a bath.
"Piccolo! Settle down!" He cried, and noticed as Piccolo turned his head that his eyes were blitzed…frantic…desperate.
"Release me, Goku!"
"You can't fight him alone! You'll die!"
He tried to slam Gokus' face with the back of his head, but Goku was quicker than that and dodged it.
"…MY…CHOICE!"
Goku tightened his grip as his heart lodged in his throat. He hadn't anticipated that one of his comrades would lose it right before the battle. And the fact that it was Piccolo was unnerving indeed.
"What's gotten into you!"
Piccolo laughed maniacally at that, and it reminded the Saiyan disturbingly of the Demon King right before Goku killed him.
"What's gotten into me?" he barked incredulously. "Nail! Kami! My father! Take your pick."
Dread started to weigh Goku down. Whatever was wrong with his ally was nothing mild. "Come on, Pic. Get a hold of yourself."
"Which one?" His crazed grin turned into a grimace, and Piccolo turned back around, but not before Goku caught the shimmering in his eyes. "Let me go."
"Not until you come to your senses," he said sternly. "We had a plan."
"Does it make a difference?" the warrior asked, his voice suddenly very haggard…weary… "Whether I die now, or later?"
"We're not going to lose!"
"But I want to lose!" he countered, the words making Goku feel like his gut had just dropped out. Piccolo's voice caught, and his next words were strained. "Better to die as myself than live as an imposter."
The raw emotion emanating from his most stoic of friends was almost suffocating. Goku had no idea what to say to that. None at all. That's why he was so immensely grateful to feel another presence stop abruptly behind him - of the one individual that might make a difference in Piccolo's unsettling resolve.
"Piccolo…?" came Gohan's timid voice, and Piccolo's ears twitched at the sound. Goku felt him relax in his grip, and he immediately dropped them both to the ground, with Gohan en tow.
His earlier aggression spent, Piccolo sank to his hands and knees when they landed, with his head hanging between trembling shoulders. He looked awful. Swallowing his concern and confusion, Goku took a step back and let his son try to console the green warrior. He'd seen their bond, and considered it par with his own. He bit down on his lip as Gohan knelt before the traumatized namekian, placing a small, comforting hand on his arm.
Come on, Gohan, he urged silently as his saddened eyes rested on Piccolo's back. Reach him.
Piccolo flinched at the gesture and looked up briefly to see Gohan's worried face. Then he released a shuddering breath and buried his head in his hands. "Gohan…" he muffled in the dirt "I…I don't know who I am anymore…"
Goku held his tongue and watched as Gohan's hand tightened on Piccolo's arm, his brow furrowing with sympathy. "I know who you are," he began, his small, honest voice penetrating even Goku's oblivious nature. "You're Piccolo."
Silence followed. Goku blinked. Could it possibly be that simple?
Piccolo lifted his head and looked openly at Gohan as if he'd just handed him the most precious gift in the universe. Then the namekian did something totally unexpected.
He hugged the boy.
Goku felt an odd, tingling expansion in his chest, reminiscent of what he felt the day Gohan was born, as he watched his former enemy embrace his only son as though the youth were more precious to him than breath.
Gohan's eyes glistened and he patted the large warrior's back awkwardly. Goku still had no idea what had been ailing Piccolo, but Gohan had fixed him. Just like that. His vision began to blur. Alarmed, Goku blinked, and it cleared. Well no wonder, he thought, bewildered. There was water standing in my eyes…
