Chapter Four:



It was getting dark. And Goku was getting worried.

"Hey, Miss Bulmabrief?"

She sighed and turned toward the kid. "Bulma. My name is Bulma."

"Oh, okay. Miss Bulma, will we be stopping soon?"

She sighed. Goku was not the most patient kid around. Now very quiet either. He had asked if they were stopping soon three times in the past five minutes, and he had been talking most of the day, mostly about his life in the woods. Stuff Bulma had little interest in.

"Soon, Goku. As soon as it gets dark."

Goku shook his head violently back and forth. "We have to be inside before that!" he said in a worried voice. "The monster that killed my grandpa comes out of the moon at night!"

He had said this a few times as well. Bulma was getting pretty tired of listening to him, so she stopped the car right in that spot.

"We'll stop here. Is that better?" she asked in an irritated voice.

Goku nodded with a huge smile and jumped out of the car. The smile faded into a look of confusion as he looked around.

"Hey, Miss Bulmabrief?"

Bulma let out a sigh that was closer to a growl. "Yes?"

"Where are we gonna sleep? I don't see a house." he put his hand above his eyes and gazed off into the grassy field next to the road.

Bulma pulled a capsule out of her pocket and threw it into the field. "Here we go. One house."

There was a pop, a cloud of smoke, and then where there had been nothing before there was now a house.

Goku's eyes grew wide and his mouth hung open. "WOW! You made a house out of thin air! Are you magic, Bulma?"

Bulma smiled at Goku's admiration and at the fact that he had remembered her name. "No, it's a capsule, silly. You just press the button on the top, and whatever's inside comes out!"

Goku raised one eyebrow and scratched his head. "You can fit a house into that little thing?"

Bulma nodded, still smiling. "My dad invented it. He owns capsule corporation."

"Oh." Goku said. He didn't ask what capsule corp. was. He didn't appear to even notice. "Is there food in the house?"

Bulma nodded.

And then was knocked over as Goku bowled over her to get inside.

She picked herself up. "Why that rude little..."







Walking. It felt like that was all they had been doing for their whole lives. Just walking. But they were still in these woods, and if they didn't get out soon, they could be found by the soldiers of Red Ribbon that were certainly out to look for them.

"Kami, I'm tired." Yamucha sighed. "We've been moving for almost fourteen hours now."

Tien said nothing. He seemed to be completely ignoring the bandit, as he had been for the whole time they had been together since he had helped bandage the guy. The fact that he had probably saved Yamucha's life didn't really occur to them.

"We'll have to stop soon, or we won't be able to fight if someone sees us. We'll be too tired." Choutzu said. He hated to fight, but sometimes it was something you had to do, and if you had to do it, it was best to do it well.

"The desert where I used to live should be fairly close, to the east." Yamucha said. "If we go there, I know some people that would help us."

"Too open." Tien said shortly. "If we get caught in the desert, we can't escape."

Yamucha immediately took the defensive. "We could hide. I know all kinds of places."

"I'm sure you do." Tien said flatly, staring around them, looking for a hidden spot. "But right now we're not in the position of being able to even put ourselves at risk of discovery. We won in that fight against Tao Pai Pai because we were lucky, and that's it. If he chose to he could probably kill us both." Tien now turned and eyed Yamucha. "Believe me, I hate to admit that. But if Red Ribbon were to get any kind of clue as to where Choutzu and I are, not to mention you, we're as good as dead."

Yamucha opened his mouth to protest again, but then closed it. He sighed. "Do what you want. I'm going home."

Before either had said a thing, or were even able to, Yamucha had turned and walked off through the trees, leaving them both completely flabbergasted.

"We can't let him just leave." Tien said suddenly. "That doubles the risk of being caught. If Red Ribbon finds him, he's sure to talk after only a couple days of torture."

Choutzu didn't say anything, and Tien had always figured that silence gave consent. So he walked off into the trees quietly after Yamucha.







Tien had hardly cleared the first few yards of brush when another waking dream suddenly hit Choutzu.







He was in a village, and it appeared that a very long amount of time had passed between his first vision and this one. Everywhere now there were people, not gods, as he somehow knew there had once been. Now the only god who even visited here from time to time was Hotei, the god of luck who had been in the first vision.

The dream was almost not even a dream. It was like virtual reality, and Choutzu found that he could walk around, and that no one appeared to see him. Glancing upward, he saw a signpost above him. He had started right below it, and had only moved a couple of feet. It read:

Penguin Village.

He had heard that name before, he was sure of it. But where? Most likely it was part of his empire and he had only heard the name in passing, but still...

He lost his train of thought all at once as a huge commotion went up in a far corner of the village, at the road. He immediately ran that way, hoping to see what was going on. He elbowed past people easily enough, and their reactions were enough to convince him that he really couldn't be seen.

He was in his own body, at least he knew that, and so he was far too short to see over the heads of the crowd. He called on his psychic powers, and in a second, he was hovering about ten feet up, high enough to have a perfect view of the road.

And as soon as he saw what was on the road, his concentration broke and he plummeted to the earth.

He had gotten only a glimpse, but that was enough. He had seen. Apparently this was some sort of farewell celebration, and he had clearly seen the two people on the road that were walking out of town. They were a man and a woman, short, white skinned, with red cheeks.

Just like him.

He picked himself up and dusted his clothes, and then noticed someone standing next to him, looking down at him kindly. For the first time he wasn't surprised at all. Easily recognizable with his huge girth, kindly face, and open baggy robe was Hotei.

"Hello, my little friend." he said in a good-natured tone. "I see you don't understand a lot of these things. But it will all come in time, my little friend. You are all pieces, you see. The man of Heaven who goes with you, and the Thief from the desert, and a little boy who even now is on his own quest. Pieces you all are."

"Pieces?" Choutzu asked. "What do you mean, pieces? And what are these dreams?"



Hotei laughed a deep, happy laugh. "You will find out in time. I tell you alone because only you have the power to see the old gods. You have that special mind gift..." he seemed to hunt for words. "The people now name it psychic power. The others cannot see me or receive my signals."

"But... what does all this mean? Can't you tell me? Why don't the other old gods help?" Choutzu asked randomly, trying to get as much out as he could.

Hotei looked sad. "Asleep. All the other old gods. They sleep, and pass their realms on to others, other young ones to keep. They no longer care for the people."

Choutzu didn't know what to make of this, and stored it in his mind to think of later. "But what is all this? What did you mean by pieces? Like a game?"

"Oh, no, my friend. Nothing so fixed as that." Hotei said, his smile back. "More like a puzzle, you see? A puzzle, and I only want to help the people. You have to come together to make a whole. Something is happening, greater than the design of all the old gods!" he threw his arms into the air. "You, my little friend, are but one part. A big part, though not as big as the boy who comes ever closer, but bigger than many others who will play their role, and far bigger than most of the people."

Choutzu shook his head quickly back and forth. "But what do you mean, something is happening? Explain it, please!"

Hotei's smile faltered and he shook his head in the negative. "My time for now is up, little friend. In time, you will understand."

And before Choutzu could protest or ask one last time, the vision had winked out, and he was standing, listening to Tien push through the trees. The whole vision, it seemed, had taken less than a second.







Tien saw Yamucha the second he got through the line of trees, and grabbed him smartly by the wrist.

"Sorry, but I can't let you leave." he said. Though he sounded not sorry in the least. "We have to stay together while our position is this dangerous."

Yamucha yanked his hand away. "You can't stop me." he said simply.



Tien nodded. "But I can. That's just it."

Slowly, both warriors crouched into stance, staring the other down. A fight was about to happen.







"Honestly, Kami, I think the old guy's gone cracked!" Korin said, using his not small bit of psychic power to carry his voice to the sanctuary of heaven. "What can he possible hope to accomplish by getting the kid all worked up like this?"

Kami's mental sigh came down into Korin's mind.

Look, I know you've been here longer than me, the old namek said. But Hotei has been here since the beginning! We aren't in any position to tell him how to handle his own realm.

"But that's just it!" Korin said. "If he had asked one of us to do the talking, it would be a little different, but I hardly see how all this has anything to do with luck!"

Kami mentally sighed once again, deeper this time. Again, he's far senior to us both, and the realm of Luck can be interpreted in many ways. Who are we to judge?

"Well, you're Kami, aren't you?" Korin said impatiently. "You have rule of this planet, unless an appeal is made to Kaio-sama or Kaio-shin, he can't do anything you say he can't."

He overrules them both when it comes to cases like this, and you know that. Why don't we just let matters play out a little?

Now it was Korin's turn to sigh as he broke the telepathic link. It wasn't the actions of the ancient god that bugged him, or the intentions. But the fact that Hotei had simply begun to interfere with fate before discussing it with one of the planets two resident gods first made him very uneasy and temperamental. Because something like this probably meant that a few very important events would soon take place. Whether the outcome would be god or bad remained to be seen.

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Again, in case anyone is interested, Tien is literally Chinese for 'heaven'. The connection will be explained later on.

Ja ne

The Rev.