A/N: Alrighty, here we go! Another chapter on the books!
Chapter 10: Fly
Gohan's eyes flitted from person to person. He knew the odds were overwhelmingly in their favor, but this was different from their previous battles. The consequences would be more severe. Not only would resisting a safe return back to the Beifong Estate be bad for Toph's relationship with her parents, but it wouldn't be great for any of them either. If Toph's parents had a far enough pull, they could ask the Ba Sing Se police to bring them back to Gaoling. Fighting the Earth King's forces was the last thing Gohan wanted. They needed to talk with the Earth King peacefully and that couldn't happen if they were fighting his men. However, if things went south, they couldn't let themselves get captured either.
"Don't crap your pants there, boy!"
Gohan's gaze flickered over to the stout street fight announcer from a few weeks before. He barely gave him a second of thought as he instead turned his gaze to his other opponents: the stocky Xin Fu and the thinner but also formidable Master Yu. 'We need to hurt them as little as possible. We don't want to seem like barbarians, but we also have to make sure that they don't follow us again.' His gaze went over to their rides. The eel-hounds were practically salivating as they fixed their eyes on Jing. 'Maybe I could get Jing to paralyze their eel-hounds. . ? No, I don't want to risk Jing getting injured. Plus, she's hauling the wagon. That could get destroyed in the fight.' He stole a glance next to him. Toph was standing loosely but Gohan wasn't fooled. She was ready to fight at a moment's notice, hoping for it, even. 'She might not listen to me. . .'
Screw it.
"Toph, let's go!" he shouted, immediately turning to run. "We can lose them!"
"What?!" she cried. "We can beat them. I can beat them with my pinky toe!"
Gohan risked a glance over his shoulder, seeing she hadn't moved an inch. "I don't doubt that but we need to-"
THWACK!
Gohan's eyes darted towards Jing's direction. Instead of seeing Jing, he saw a wall of earth obscuring the Shirshu. In the dead center was an indent of a rock ball. It couldn't have been much bigger than a fist. His eyes flashed back in time to see Xin Fu launch another one at the wall. This time, the rock wall began to crack.
"Toph, we need to go!" Gohan pleaded. "They're aiming for Jing!"
"What? So we just run and hide while they attack us?"
Gohan stopped running as he fully turned to face Toph. "We can defend Jing while we retreat! You're more than capable of that."
Another stone whizzed past his head. A quick head turn let him spot Master Yu's outstretched fist and sheepish smile. "Sorry about that! Aimed a little too close there!"
"Toph," Gohan hissed. "Please."
Toph didn't say anything for a few moments before she made a quick stomp, sending five fist-sized stones into the air and over the wall. There were a few thunks and Gohan had no doubt that each of the stones had landed in Jing's wagon. Considering there weren't any yelps, it seemed Jing hadn't gotten spooked and Shen hadn't been hit.
"Fine, but if they gain on us, I'm kicking their butts."
Gohan figured that was probably as good as he was gonna get. He once again ran for the wagon, dimly aware of his enemies' footsteps pounding after him. It didn't last too long as there was a loud rumble followed by Toph zipping past him riding a wave of rocks.
Despite the situation, he couldn't help but look at the feat with awe. "So cool!"
It wasn't long before Xin Fu and Master Yu crashed through the wall, but Gohan and the gang were already on their way by then. He gaped as they stood crouched on their eel-hounds as they charged. If he squinted, he could make out some darkened, round objects in their grips.
"That can't be safe!" he cried out.
"Safe for who?!" Shen yelped. "I can't see anything like this! Would it kill ya to prop me up at least?!"
"Don't worry about it, Shen," Toph said, smirking. "I've got this."
With a thrust of her fist, a stone went flying at Master Yu's head. A quick swipe saved him from getting a painful face full of rock. Xin Fu launched two stones at the cart that Toph stopped in mid-air before letting them drop harmlessly into the cart.
"Thanks for the ammo, dunderheads!" Toph jeered.
"Toph!" Xin Fu boomed. "Return with us now and no harm will come to you and your friends!"
"Look, man, I'm not going back! So you can stuff it!"
She jumped out of the cart and thrust a fist forward as a sizable piece of the dirt road followed her movement, causing the men to duck. It sailed over their heads before crashing in the distance.
Gohan blinked. 'Why did I just get the weirdest sense of deja vu?'
Without being able to ponder on it for long, Xin Fu leaped down from his ride and began to jet forward, using a wave of rocks much like Toph had used. He launched a handful of rocks at the blind girl that she crushed to fragments with her own wave of rocks. Master Yu similarly jumped down from his perch as he used the jetting technique. Gohan watched in awe as the three kept pace with the eel-hounds and Jing (even as Toph was jetting along in reverse). Xin Fu suddenly kicked out to his right, sending a tunneling fissure of earth off the trail and into the forest.
"Wow, does your bending suck that bad?" Toph mocked. "I've seen better bending from babies!"
Xin Fu gave her a savage smirk. "Not exactly."
CRACK!
Gohan spun to face a now falling oak. Jing came to a screeching halt, jostling her wagon's occupants. There were some loud skids (Gohan couldn't differentiate whether they were coming from Jing, the wagon, the eel-hounds, the fighters, or all of them), as they finally came to a halt. Gohan found himself holding the back of the cart in a death grip with one hand, and one of the stones with the other to keep it from beaming Shen in the forehead. The girl was slumped up against a sack of bread, nearly upside down.
After seeing if she was alright, he gingerly looked back at the fight behind him.
"Hold her off, Yu!" Xin Fu shouted. "I'm going for the cart!"
Gohan's eyes widened as Xin Fu took off like a sprinter. With a boost from some earth, he went sailing through the air on a clear course for Gohan and the cart. Toph tried to throw some rocks Xin Fu's way, but Master Yu was on her immediately with a barrage of rocks. Xin Fu fired a rock from above at an insane velocity. Gohan didn't know what was going through his mind as he caught the ball (he didn't even know how he managed to catch it, for that matter), but he immediately regretted it. His hand immediately exploded in pain as he felt something break, but he was still able to stop the ball from crashing into the cart. At the speed it'd been going, it would've certainly done some major damage.
Unfortunately for him, he was completely unprepared for Xin Fu when he landed. The cart shook from the impact, which only served to make Jing run faster. Xin Fu walked towards him, wobbling like a toddler learning to walk, a bag in hand. Gohan wasn't sure what was in it, but he knew it couldn't have been good. The wagon hit an obstruction in the road, making the wagon jostle about. He lost his grip on the bag and it tumbled towards him. With only a moment's hesitation, Gohan dove for it and snagged it with his good hand. Unfortunately for him, he'd dived right in front of Xin Fu.
The man picked him up in a bear hug, squeezing the life out of him. Gohan tried to elbow Xin Fu in the kidney, but his grip didn't allow for much movement or leverage. He could feel tears of pain prickling at his eyes, but he refused to let go of the bag.
"Let him go, ya jerk!" Shen snarled. "Just wait until I get my hands on ya!"
"Good luck with that runt!" Xin Fu spat back, grunting as his grip seemed to grow tighter. "Unluckily for you two, I don't need to bring you both back in one piece."
With that sentence, Gohan felt the wind knock out of him as he dropped to the ground holding his stomach. By the time he'd realized that he'd been punched, he was being turned over on his back as Xin Fu stood over him, gripping the side of the wagon for support. In the man's other hand was the bag. "Nighty night, runt."
He untied the bag and stooped low, holding it over Gohan's face. He tried to roll out of the way or kick at him, but another swift punch to the gut and head had him reeling.
He didn't even know how he'd mustered the clarity for a vision as he felt the tingling return.
The ground was scorched and burnt. There were a few embers of fire scattered about the landscape. The landscape itself had already been uneven rocks, it looked like a canyon of sorts, but now there were wide patches of cratered ground. He could see carnage everywhere he looked. At one point, he could swear that he saw a mountain missing a significant chunk of its size.
"What happened here?" he murmured.
He suddenly stopped, blocking out all of the noise, he tried to pinpoint on one particularly high-pitched sound. It sounded kinda like a tea kettle. No that wasn't right. More like someone was whistling? He turned in the direction of the sound and saw a rapidly moving object. It looked small, real small, but it was rapidly becoming bigger.
"What is that- yikes!"
Gohan threw himself to the ground to avoid the rapidly moving projectile. He heard another whoosh go over his head when he finally stood up. "Right. . . vision. They can't hurt me here. You think I'd have realized that by now."
Ignoring his previous actions, he watched two blurs dart over the landscape, sonic booms added new craters into the ground. The two figures blurred around as the hills around them shattered in their wake. He tried to follow them, but he couldn't do much other than observe the havoc that they left in their battle. Finally, they came to a stop.
One of them was him. He looked about the same age as he had in his vision about Raava. But that wasn't what really drew his attention. He was floating.
"Vegeta!"
Gohan jerked back to the vision. "Can't get distracted!"
"It isn't too late to stop this!" his future self shouted.
Vegeta scowled. Gohan could feel an involuntary shiver run up his spine just from the sight of the man. Everything within him was screaming at him to run despite the fact that he couldn't be harmed. "Where's your Saiyan pride, half-breed?"
The clashes resumed anew.
Gohan gasped as he finally came to.
Just in time for something to touch his tongue.
He spat it out immediately, but more only continued to pour in as his mouth opened once more. He could feel himself getting drowsy immediately as he finally began to remember his situation. Xin Fu was standing over him, one hand was pinching nose closed while the other was pouring that substance into his mouth as he kneeled on him to keep him in place.
'I need to get out of here!'
The next few moments were a blur.
He could feel his body force itself against the pressure that Xin Fu exerted. He started to push higher and higher until he began to realize that he couldn't feel his bag against the wagon anymore. To be fair, he couldn't feel much of anything anymore. No, he realized, he could feel the wind whistling around him as a warmth began to envelope him. It felt like a warm hug from his parents. He smiled at that thought.
"What the-?! What the hell are you?!"
Gohan was snapped from his daze as he saw Xin Fu dangling in the air, decently far from the ground. 'What the. . . how'd he get up here? Wait, is that my leg he's hanging onto?!'
He looked about himself and saw the branches of various trees, the tops of the trees were becoming clearer by the second. He could feel his heart rate quickening as his new situation dawned on him. He thought it couldn't get any worse when he began to fall. The ground quickly raced for them, and it wasn't thanks to bending as he and Xin Fu hurtled for the ground.
"Hey!" Xin Fu shouted. "Hey, hey, hey! Stop messing around!"
Gohan's mind was racing a million miles a minute. It was so much so that he almost didn't notice Xin Fu's fist banging against his leg. "Oh crap, oh crap! How did I do that?! How do I do it again?! I've got to figure this out or else Xin Fu and I are gonna die!'
His frantic planning wasn't helped by Xin Fu's screaming. In fact, it sounded like everyone was screaming, probably morbidly transfixed by the spectacle. He could've sworn he could hear himself screaming as well. That wasn't even mentioning the chaos going on with the energy signatures of everyone around him. All of their terrified energy signatures were rushing over him like a wildfire. It was all too much to focus.
'Wait! You need to block it out! C'mon, Gohan. C'mon!'
He blocked out the energy. He blocked out the screams. He blocked out the feeling of Xin Fu's death grip on his leg. He focused on the warmth.
He chanced a glance at the ground. He was hovering a few feet above the ground. All were transfixed.
Gohan wasn't, however. He had a plan.
He took back off at as quick of a pace as he trusted himself to manage. Xin Fu was yelling expletives the entire way. At least Gohan thought that was what he was shouting; he was only half paying attention to him. He was too busy focusing on not falling out of the air to an untimely death, after all.
Before long, he reached his destination. The river was cold and unforgiving but not life-threatening. At least not to a person with a decent amount of bending and physical ability like Xin Fu. Even then, it'd be challenging for Xin Fu to get out of it.
There was only one thing left to do.
He let it all come rushing back.
He free fell for the river as Xin Fu screamed his lungs out. Surprisingly, he didn't use his bending to save himself. 'Maybe he can't! Maybe he has to be on the Earth or have it close by to bend?'
It would certainly make sense with all of the physicality that earthbending required and was known for. His focus snapped back as he stopped their fall just long enough so that they didn't plaster themselves on the river's surface. Against his will, however, they fully collapsed into the swift moving stream.
Xin Fu's hold, as strong as it was, softened a hair when the rapids began to batter his frame. Gohan took full advantage as he pushed his free foot into the man's face and wrenched his foot free of his iron grip. Xin Fu was only able to give an outraged shout as the waters carried him off. Meanwhile, Gohan gingerly flew himself out of the river, teetering like a baby learning to walk.
It was frustrating work getting himself back to the group, but he did it. He landed unceremoniously on his back after his spontaneous flight back. He could feel Shu and Toph's eyes. . . er attention. . on him, but he couldn't find it in him to look up or even move, for that matter. Between his sudden exhaustion and drowsiness, he was feeling he doubted he'd even be conscious for much longer.
"Hey, Master Yu. . ." Gohan grunted out. He could hardly feel his lips moving even as he heard himself speak. "Your partner's going down the river. You better go catch him. . . I'm not sure if there's a waterfall. . . nearby or not. . ."
There was a gasp, presumably from Master Yu, and Gohan heard no more.
The terrain was just as weathered as his last vision. Never mind. Scratch that. It had somehow gotten worse. The hills of rock that had once scattered the area had been torn to rubble. The craters were even more numerous than before. Smoke clouds were still billowing off in the distance, and every once in a while, he could spot some of those lingering embers from before. Most notable, however, had to be the gaping crevice that was running through the terrain. It looked about as wide as Jing was long, and he couldn't see the bottom.
He gulped as he turned his eyes to the two figures floating above the gap: his future self and Vegeta.
"You don't have to do this, Vegeta!" future Gohan pleaded.
"Where's your spine?!" Vegeta spat, his features rippling violently. His armor was scuffed up, but for the most part he looked unharmed. Gohan, on the other hand, looked fatigued with a few deep bruises marring his face and body. "Where is your Saiyan pride?!"
"Look around you, Vegeta!" Future Gohan shouted back. "Where has your Saiyan pride gotten you?! Constantly on the run from Frieza! The last pure Saiyan of your race! Your pride of a virtually dead race means nothing! Nothing!"
Vegeta gave what could only be described as a primal, guttural roar as he launched himself forward. At least, Gohan assumed that was what happened. To his eyes, it looked as if he'd teleported with one fist out. His future self was launched across the horizon. He couldn't see himself anymore. He could feel goosebumps prickling up his arms.
He knew it wouldn't do himself good to worry about events he couldn't change, but this looked awful.
Gohan's eyes fluttered open.
He shot up with a gasp only to have a hand shove him back down. He craned his neck to see that it was Shen who still had her hand on his chest, sitting cross-legged next to him. He looked at her through bleary eyes of confusion before he came to the realization. She probably didn't want him to move to avoid sickness or exertion. That was awfully mature of her.
Thankfully, she seemed to have worked all of the paralytics out of her system. However, it seemed that the paralysis had transferred to him with how little he could move himself.
'At least I can still feel,' he thought to himself as his head knocked lightly against the bottom of the wagon. 'I just hope that wasn't a poison. I don't think he would've given me poison, anyways. I'm almost certain it was some kind of paralytic.'
Instead, he cast his eyes to the night sky. It was quite pretty with the moon and the stars out. A half-moon from the look of it.
"What happened?" Gohan asked, his voice hoarse.
"Ya mean after ya flew?" came Shen's dry reply. "Nothing much. Master Yu just hightailed it out of there. Probably to help Xin Fu. The eel-hounds went with him. We crossed a river a while ago, and we've been heading this way ever since."
Gohan nodded. Good, so they were probably going in the right direction. He could check the map later to find out for sure since they'd be coming to a resting spot soon. 'Still. . .'
"Did you see Master Yu or Xin Fu? Or their eel-hounds?"
Shen shook her head. "Not since the fight."
"Ah."
"When'd you learn to fly?"
Gohan craned his neck over to see Toph huddled against one of their sacks of money. "Uh, now, I guess? I didn't really learn it. It was just. . . instinctual, I guess."
"So Great Spirit mumbo jumbo?"
Gohan frowned. "I wouldn't call it that but I believe it was thanks to my visions, yeah."
". . . What was it like?"
"Huh?"
"Flying up there? What was it like?"
He paused. He tried to recall his impromptu flight through the sky, but the details were foggy. Whether that was because of the mystery substance Xin Fu gave him or adrenaline, he wasn't sure. "I didn't remember much of it. It was scary though."
"I can't believe I got beaten so early," Shen grumbled, taking her hand off of his chest to cross her arms. "By Jing of all people!"
Gohan chuckled. "Don't take it so hard, Shen. Any of us could have been the ones covered in Shirshu saliva."
"Yeah, right," Toph scoffed. "I would've seen it coming from a mile away."
"Yeah, if ya could see," Shen grumbled. Suddenly, she yelped. "Ouch! Really? A pebble? How mature of you."
Toph simply smirked.
Gohan let the two banter on, offering a short bit of input whenever he was inevitably dragged back into the conversation. However, his mind wouldn't leave his vision alone. What did it mean? It looked like he was losing to Vegeta. If he lost, the world was done for. That was unacceptable. But if that was a vision, he couldn't change it. It was a vision for a reason; it wouldn't change no matter how much he tried.
'True, but you don't know if you were losing. Maybe you were holding back?'
Somehow, he didn't think that was it.
"Hey, Gohan!"
Gohan jerked as the back of his head smacked harshly into the wagon's floor, likely from Jing hitting a bump in the road. Hissing through the pain, his eyes focused on Shen's expectant stare. "Huh?! What?"
Shen rolled her eyes. "Clean your ears, kid. We've been trying to get your attention for the past bajillion minutes!"
Gohan sighed as he tried to ignore the throbbing pain in his head. "Sorry, I've been thinking."
"About what?"
He stopped himself. He couldn't tell them about the fight with Vegeta, about his vision. He didn't even know if it was a vision to be perfectly honest. It could've been a regular dream. Or at least as regular as dreams ever got for him. ". . About the fight."
Shen's expression soured. "Oh."
"Why didn't you let me fight them?" Toph asked.
Gohan winced. She deserved an explanation; he was sure about that but he had a feeling that she'd be less than thrilled with his assessment. "I didn't want you to hurt them too badly. It would've looked bad on you and the rest of us by the time we met the Earth King, and it could have us immediately apprehended by the Earth King depending on how much pull your parents have."
"And now they know where we're headed because ya told that stupid Yu guy!" Shen hissed. "Great job, by the way."
Gohan's cheeks flushed as he shook his head. Gosh, he felt dizzy. "No, I don't think they will. Xin Fu looks like he's the head of this operation and Wang Lei is his brother. Wang Lei has a personal bone to pick with us, so I doubt that he'd tell the Beifongs where we're headed in the first place if they want the bounty that badly. If the Beifongs, er, Toph's parents found out about where we were headed, they could get Ba Sing Se police involved which would make it harder to collect the bounty."
"But what was the point of telling them?!"
"I dunno. . . it just seemed right."
The trio sat in silence for a few moments before Toph spoke up.
"When I went to the cart, I did it for Jing," Toph declared. "Not because you told me to. I didn't come along on this trip to get bossed around."
Gohan nodded. "I thought so. I wasn't trying to boss you around or anything. I just thought it'd be better not to fight them."
Toph just scoffed.
"What was that Xin Fu tried to give ya?" Shen asked, thankfully changing the subject. "We tried waking ya, but ya wouldn't budge "
"I'm not sure. I think it was some kind of paralytic."
"It wasn't poisonous, was it?"
"I don't think so. If he wanted to kill me, there are definitely much simpler ways to go about it."
Gohan felt a shiver come over him. He hadn't realized how close he'd come to dying today. Not even just today, he and the others had come far too close to death than he would've liked. The journey to the Earth King was always going to be challenging, sure, but did it have to be so deadly?
"That's enough of that depressing stuff!" Shen said. To Gohan's credit, he didn't bang his head this time. "Toph, you've gotta teach me to bend! My ankle's all better now!"
She practically had stars shining in her eyes. Toph seemed to lose a bit of her previous ire as she grinned. "Alright, fine. But you have to call me Master, got it?"
"Got it, Master!"
Toph smiled a devious little smile. "I could get used to this."
Gohan sighed. Those two together would be impossible. He just hoped they wouldn't be losing their mirth any time soon.
And preferably their mirth wouldn't be at his expense.
Preferably.
Zuko walked through a small village (on the outskirts of the already small mining village) with the sun beating down on him, despite his straw-hat. His uncle had chosen to stay at their inn, but he wanted to continue looking for clues. He needed to find the Avatar, after all. It had been a fruitless venture for the past couple of years, but he wasn't going to give up hope just yet. He would find the Avatar if it was the last thing he did.
He stopped at a stand selling some quality weapons and bought a few swords, carrying them in a sheath underneath his arm. Dual wield, of course. He already had a perfectly working pair, but one could never be too careful. He'd still choose his refined, top-of-the-line Fire Nation blades over these second-rate Earth Kingdom blades, though. He kept walking around the trading center, heading further towards the bartering stands of goods. He didn't actually want to buy anything there. No, he went there for the travelers. The people who would sell and buy there had been all over the world picking up their goods. And if they hadn't left the little village they called home, they at least worked with or knew some of the people who did. They were nice little informants.
As he drew closer, he could hear the usual bustle. At first, there wasn't much other than the usual conversation: a couple of people talking about a random bending tournament, some talk about a bending sports team, some conversation and inquiries about one another's well-being and their family, some talk about the crops and rainy season. He was beginning to question how much more of it that he'd be able to tolerate when he finally heard something interesting.
". . . killed him! In cold blood. Insert Spirit as my witness!"
"Do you think it was the Avatar?"
"Could've been. Definitely some type of spirit."
Zuko headed over to two traders. They looked just a hair under middle-aged, just old enough to be reliable and young enough to not be senile. Hopefully, they weren't the type of people to tell tall tales. "Where did you hear about this?"
The two men regarded him with blank and furrowed brows. Zuko had had a lot of time to get used to people not showing him the respect he deserved as the prince of the Fire Nation. It was honestly starting to become more familiar than his days as a royal. Thankfully enough, one of the men answered him. "Uh, one of my friends, actually. He knew a guy who worked near the area. He said it was one of the craziest things he ever heard about, but he swore every word was true. I trust his word more than anybody in this world."
Zuko's eyes narrowed. "Tell me more."
A/N: With that chapter 10 is complete! This was sorta hard to do because I didn't have a lot of specifics written down, but hopefully I fixed that issue for future chapters. But now. . .
X3runner: Yeah, well, there's your answer for the flying thing XD. He's not great at it, but he's got the basics down so far. He's using mostly instinct so far, though, but yeah, he'll keep refining it through practice.
Also yeah, I really love writing Shen and Gohan's brother-sister dynamic (prolly because I've got two sisters T-T). I really feel like it helps make the writing easier, livelier, and interesting, so I'm glad you enjoy it!
jonathonne: Here you are, my good man. Hopefully, I won't forget my updating schedule again :,)
M0b1uz: Thanks man, it means a lot that you read my fic. Yeah, I was inspired to give Gohan the ability to see the future because of this one DBZ fanfic I read called "Through the Ghost". I always thought it was interesting since it had Gohan inherit Bardock's precognition abilities. So, I was like fuck it, I wanna do this, the stakes could be tremendous!
Also, (kinda doing this out of order) I agree on it being really easy to insert Gohan character-wise. He's such a meek, do-gooder character that he can fit in just about any story or group of upstanding people, especially like the Gaang. Aside from, y'know, the power disparity lol.
Lastly, though, I'll just admit this one straight up cause ion think it'll have any implications one way or another. Gohan's looking for Aang in the last vision of Chapter 1 not Korra. I ain't gonna be touching just about any character from the Legend of Korra unless something weird happens.
And that is all of the reviews. Feel free to leave some more, favorite, and follow. Thanks to everyone who has done so thus far. It gives me hella serotonin. Now, I'm gonna try and sleep off the sore throat that started kicking my ass.
Uploaded: October 14th 2022
