Descargo de Responsabilidad: No soy la duena de el Dragonball Z. Yo solo
soy una chica que no tiene muchas cosas lujosas y necesita escribir
FanFiction para mantener a algn ocupado. Necesito una vida. Hmm . . .
Spanishy.
Liminal Message: Read ZippyDragon*43's 'Romance Idiots With High Ki.' It is cool and all and she is my Homie G Funk Dawg from the West Saieed and my own personal Funnie Wonder.
Subliminal Message: rednoW einnuF lanosrep nwo ym dna deeiaS tseW eht morf gwaD knuF G eimoH ym si ehs dna lla dna looc si tI '.iK hgiH htiW stoidI ecnamoR' s'34*nogarDyppiZ daeR
And now, on with the fic! Tallyho!
Little Lotte and Questionnaire
"No, what I love best," Lotte said,
"Is when I'm asleep in my bed
And the Angel of Music
Sings songs in my head!"
"A little to the left. That's right . . . keep her going . . ." Chichi directed the construction workers as if she owned them. The sun beat down on the sight, making the industrious workers a bit lethargic and even the overseers in their shady pavilion sweat. The warm air rippled to the eyes like an atmospheric lake around the old stadium now being remodeled. Chichi wiped her brow of sweat before inhaling another lungful of air to continue ordering the labourers around.
"Chichi," Goku stopped her short, "I think they're doing fine on their own. I mean look," he pointed to some men directing a cement truck, "doesn't it seem like they know what they're doing?"
Chichi smiled guilelessly to her husband and cupped his cheek in her hand. "Of course they know what they're doing, Sweetie. I'm just making sure they do it right," she released him and walked off to go find a megaphone.
Goku smiled and sighed. That was his Chichi. He turned to look at the rest of the newly purchased sight, the sound of Chichi's commands amplified by a megaphone just a little too much for his ears to handle. Despite the unbearable heat, he saw Krillin and Tien both flying around, playing keep-away with Chaozu, the doll-faced fighter desperately trying to get his little hat from the two. Gohan sat in the shade of an unused truck, contentedly humming a little tune as his pencil scratched at his studies while Piccolo stood nearby, not letting his pupil stray far from his sight. Yamcha was conspicuously absent.
Goku headed over toward the tall Namekian, his cheerful demeanour wavering at the sight of his scrutinous silence. He calmly took his place beside him, waiting for him to speak first. There was a long pause where neither said anything.
"I don't trust it," Piccolo finally spoke, staring at the large form of the stadium as bits and pieces were being replaced on it.
"Don't trust what?" Goku asked, cocking his head to the side.
Piccolo narrowed his eyes. "This place gives me a strange feeling about it. Something's not right here."
Goku blinked and looked at the remnants of the stadium, and, obviously not seeing anything odd about the building, turned back to his son's tutor. "I don't know. It seems pretty normal to me."
"There's been rumour about this place . . ." Piccolo started.
"Don't tell me you believe all that stuff about the Tournament Ghost!" Goku said. "I thought you of all people would be smart enough to tell the difference between a neighbourhood legend and solid fact."
"I'm not saying I believe it's an actual ghost," Piccolo glanced sidelong at Goku, "but there have been strange occurrences around here in the years when this stadium was used."
"Like those massacres?"
"Exactly," Piccolo turned his gaze forward again. "I'm no expert on the supernatural, but I'm pretty sure they can get their point across without bloodshed. I've also been checking the old papers," he frowned grimly. "It seems the victims were attacked by energy blasts."
"Energy blasts? Like from a fighter?" Goku looked at him sharply.
Piccolo did not respond. His dark eyes held a calculating look, as though they were scanning information files within his mind. Finally he blinked and looked at his pupil's father, and in a loose sense, his friend.
"I have an inside source on this place. I'm going to look in into this and find out what's at the bottom of this little mystery." With a swirl of his white mantel the tall Namek exited with a determined note to his steps.
"Okay, you do that," Goku said in an uplifting manner. As he watched Piccolo head off to his "inside source," the he began to become aware of the intense head of the midday sun. Despite the shade he now stood in, he felt a cool drink was in order and stepped lightly toward the pavilion where his wife still preoccupied herself with instructing the unfortunate construction crew on how to properly rebuild a stadium.
"How's it coming?" he asked as he opened up a bottle of water.
Chichi took a break from her "helpful hints" to answer her husband. "I can't judge for sure, but it should be done in about a week. It's not totaled, but it was in pretty bad shape. We'll have to postpone that party with Kame Team, though."
Goku's face fell. "So no buffet?"
"Sorry, Goku," she patted his shoulder sympathetically, "no buffet."
"Miss Chichi! Miss Chichi!"
Chichi whirled around from her husband to see a small labourer rushing towards her, his round face pale and his hard hat jouncing around on his head as he ran. His feet shuffled him to a stop in front of the shady pavilion, kicking up a bit of dust that made him cough as he took deep breaths to calm himself.
Chichi looked concerned in that motherly way of hers, but managed to keep her voice crisp and matter-of-fact. "What's the problem?"
With a shaking hand, the worker delivered a small, white envelope in the expectant woman's hand. Chichi held it closer to her eyes and read the front out loud:
"*To the Newest Managers of My Stadium*"
Goku and Chichi exchanged a glance and Goku set his water down to read the letter with his wife. Chichi sat down and opened the seal of the letter, unfolding the document within and continuing to read aloud.
"*My Dearest Benefactors:
Congratulations on your purchase of the Grand Stadium. I look forward to becoming quite well acquainted with its new managers and the fighters you bring onto the premises. I must request of you, however, that you do no construction on the training rooms. I can assure you they are in perfect working order. I request a monthly salary of five thousand zeni for allowing you to use my extensive facility and would appreciate it if the north tier of seats on the high balcony level in the arena would remain unsold at every tournament. These will be reserved especially for me. I will expect that my demands will be followed to the letter and I will receive my salary within the week. If you are concerned of where to leave the money, just place it on your desk in your office before you exit. I will collect it during the night. Follow my demands, and all will be well. If not, prepare for disaster.
Sincerely Yours,
T.G.*"
"T.G.?" Goku questioned. "What does that stand for?"
Chichi gave him that 'you're-such-an-idiot-but-I-love-you-anyway' look and stated the obvious. "It probably stands for Tournament Ghost," she then directed her gaze to the messenger. "Where did you get this?"
The little man looked up at her with wide eyes that seemed to scream that they had seen what they should not have seen. "I-it was posted on the door of the m-manager's office, ma'am."
"Thank you," Chichi waved him off with her hand. "You can get back to work now."
"No ma'am."
Chichi glared sharply at the mutinous workman. "What do you mean 'no'?"
"I quit," he set his hardhat down on the table near Goku's water, the impact sending ripples throughout the clear liquid, and rushed off without another word.
Goku looked after him with a confused expression. "What do you suppose got into him?"
Chichi held the letter up and scanned it once more with an enigmatic look in her eyes.
"Maybe he ran into our little friend here," she whispered with all seriousness.
"Come on, Chaozu! I know you can be faster than that!" Krillin taunted lightheartedly.
"This isn't funny, Krillin!" Chaozu flew to retrieve his little black hat only to see it soar once again away from him and into Tien's eager hand. Tien held it high and smirked a bit when Chaozu flew up to get it, his fingers just missing the elusive article.
"Tien! I thought we were friends!" the small fighter whined.
Tien's three eyes softened a bit and he knelt down to hand the hat to Chaozu, who eagerly snatched it from him. "We're always friends, Chaozu. We're were just messing with you."
"Speaking of messes," Krillin smiled, "have either of you guys seen Yamcha around? I haven't seen the slob since the tryouts."
"No, I haven't," Tien said, looking confused. "That's weird. He should be here. After all, he did find the place for us."
Chaozu looked up at the triclops. "No he didn't. That girl did. At least that's what Chichi said."
"What girl? The one that beat Krillin up?" Tien asked.
"Hey!" Krillin shouted indignantly. "For your information, that girl just happens to be Bulma Briefs, the richest woman on Earth, so obviously she can afford the best training around! That's the only reason why she beat me!"
"Sure," Tien said, not really paying attention to the smaller man's vehement denials. "How did you find out her name anyway, Krillin? Did Chichi tell you? She didn't tell me and Chaozu."
Krillin stopped short and blinked, his hand reaching behind his head and a rosy blush tinting his cheeks. "I uh . . . well . . . ah . . ." he stuttered, his face reddening with each half-uttered syllable.
"Krillin! Are we leaving or what?!"
All seven eyes turned to see the lovely Android Eighteen leaning against her sporty red aircar, the wax job matching the steely glint in her eye. The daggers she glared were enough to turn any man's legs to jelly, but they seemed to have a particularly strong effect on Krillin. "I'm waiting," she directed her voice to the small ex-monk, her tone indicating that she would not do so for long.
"Uh, right! Coming!" Krillin suddenly snapped to attention, his smile becoming more pronounced and even more embarrassed, if that were even possible as he scurried toward the beautiful blonde.
"Byeguys!" he rushed out in one word that was barely heard over the dust he kicked up in his hurried departure. Before Tien and Chaozu could blink, the car sped off, all hopes of an explanation leaving with it.
For a while, no one said anything.
"You don't suppose . . ." Tien began, all three eyes still maintaining the expression of shock and confusion that had appeared at Krillin's hasty exit.
"No . . . Krillin knows the rules. He's not stupid enough to break them . . ." Chaozu said half-heartedly, his eyes still focused on the direction of which the car had left.
" . . . is he?" they said in unison.
"Well, Chichi," Goku surmised as he reread at the mysterious letter horizontally, "you don't *know* that the ghost wrote this. It could be some sort of prank."
Chichi's worried eyes suddenly snapped to hard obsidian. "What?" she growled ominously low in her throat.
"You know," Goku carried on, oblivious to his wife's warning tone, "I've never actually known a ghost to write anything. Wouldn't the pen pass through their hand? Come to think of it, I've never actually known any ghosts at all . . ."
Chichi's fists began to clench spasmodically while her left eye twitched in an uneven rhythm.
"Hmm . . ." Goku pondered, turning the letter once again so that it was currently upside-down, "for a ghost this guy has really neat handwriting."
"WOULD YOU JUST DROP IT ABOUT THE GHOST THING, GOKU?!!"
Goku blinked in a bewildered manner. "No need to yell, Chichi. I'm right here."
If Chichi could grind her teeth any harder, they would be nothing but gums. She snatched the letter with an abruptness that shocked her husband, despite his frequent exposure to supernatural speed. "We're going to have a look into this mess, Goku," she snarled, gripping her newly attained letter so tightly her husband feared her fingernails would puncture through and injure her hands, "starting with our beloved team members."
"But I'm sure they didn't d—" his sentence ended suddenly as she dragged him towards the clearing in the construction work where Tien and Chaozu still stood dumbstruck by the events that had previously transpired.
"All right, which one of you is the wise guy who wrote this?!" Chichi demanded.
Both the triclops and the midget did not respond, however, their mouths did gape a bit.
"ANSWER ME!"
Tien and Chaozu jumped with a start and turned around to face a horror beyond all horrors: Chichi in a *very* bad mood.
"WHICH ONE OF YOU WROTE THIS LETTER?!" she shoved the offending paper in the closest face, which just happened to be Tien's.
"Chfchf, ithha lmphteh clofta mfath . . ."
Completely ignoring Tien's complaint, she continued:
"I didn't spend our savings on this stadium just so some snot-nosed punk could pull such a moronic prank to get me to waste five thousand zeni a month to pay for god-knows-what while he sits in his expensive house that *our* money paid for, laughing at us the entire time! If I find out who did this I swear I'll rip off both his arms and beat him with them until he looses consciousness! Then I'll shove this letter right up his—"
"Chichi, calm down," Goku tried to placate his volatile wife.
"Calm down?!" she screeched in such a volume that the others had to cover their ears (except for Tien, who, unfortunately, could not slip his hands around the letter firmly planted in his face in time to save himself from her vocal onslaught). "CALM DOWN?! No I will *not* calm down! Not when someone is trying to intimidate me into giving them five thousand zeni, FIVE THOUSAND ZENI, and is most likely a member of our team!"
"Uh, Miss Chichi," Chaozu said meekly, "I don't think Tien can breathe."
Chichi blinked and pulled the letter away from Tien's face, which now sported a lovely shade of blue that could rival Bulma's hair any day. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Tien," Chichi's mood did a complete one-eighty.
"S'aright," he managed to gasp out.
Chichi put a pensive finger to her lips. "Now where was I . . . oh yes. One of you better confess right now and maybe, MAYBE, I'll let you off with a quick, simple kill . . ." her sentence tapered off with a menacing note.
Having now regained his composure, Tien decided the best way out of this situation would be to take the path of self-preservation. "We didn't write it, Chichi, I swear!"
"Oh?" she raised her brow in a scrutinous manner. "Then who did?"
"It wasn't us, Miss Chichi, honest!" little Chaozu defended himself and his friend.
"Where's Krillin?" Goku innocently tried to change the subject. Oh, Goku, when will you ever learn? You are just adding more fuel to the fire . . .
"Krillin's missing?" Chichi said suspiciously. "And just where did he go, hmm?"
"He and Eighteen left just a few minutes ago," Chaozu pointed in their direction of departure.
"WITH EIGHTEEN?! So he's helping the enemy! That's why he wrote the letter!" Chichi pieced it together.
"Hey, Chichi, are you sure?" Goku tried to placate her. "I mean, Krillin's a good guy. He wouldn't go and switch sides on us . . ."
"Oh, wouldn't he? Come on Goku!" she whirled on him. "Look at the facts! He's obviously in league with Kame Team and is trying to make sure we don't have enough money to support our fighters in the tournament, granting a complete victory for them! Obviously Roshi's slyer than we thought . . ." she puzzled out.
"You think Roshi's behind this? Really, Chichi, I thought you were better than that," Goku reprimanded his wife. "Roshi's been our friend for years! The most he has against us is just some friendly competition."
"Friendly competition my foot," Chichi growled. "He wants to ruin us! And he's using that blonde bimbo to do it too!"
"But Chichi! I thought you and Eighteen were friends!" Goku was taken aback by her hostility.
"*Were* friends, Goku!" she spat out. "We're not anymore! Do friends try to start revolutions in other friends' teams? I don't think so!"
"Chichi," Tien managed to squeeze his two cents in before the mercurial wife of his coach could start another rant, "you know the only reason we can beat Team Ginyu is because Kame Team helps us gang up on them in the team fighting. Don't you see how this could ruin our chances to win? We need Kame Team on our side."
Chichi hmphed, crossing her arms over her chest and scowling down at her feet. For all that she hated to admit it, the triclops had a point. If she cut their ties to the Kame Team, their chances at beating the opposition, namely Team Ginyu, would go down the toilet. The members of Team Ginyu were clumsy, oafish, and downright stupid, but they could fight like no tomorrow. In the individual rounds of the tournament, Chichi and Goku's Dragon Team had no problem beating the bumbling behemoths, but during the team fighting, Ginyu could never be defeated if Kame Team did not step in and help out. Without Kame Team, the Dragon Team was, for lack of a better word, screwed.
"Fine," Chichi consented. "We won't break out of our little unspoken agreement with Kame Team, but we won't mention this conversation to Krillin at all, got it?"
"But Chichi," Goku pleaded, "we can't just not tell him! I'm telling you, he didn't write it!"
"Krillin will be put on a secret trial period until our grand opening fight. None of you will tell Krillin about any of this. We will watch Krillin's actions carefully and judge whether or not he is a loyal member of our team."
"What if he isn't?" Chaozu asked worriedly.
"He will be cut from the team and will not receive any of his salary from the beginning of the year."
All others around her blanched. It was a fate worse than death, it was.
"I'll expect you men not to let your friendship impair your judgement on this matter," Chichi said curtly, "and I don't want you to let this get in the way of your fighting. I want my fighters to be nice and strong for the big opening," she allowed herself a little smile as she abruptly turned and headed off to continue overseeing the reconstruction.
"What's this 'big opening,' Chichi?" Goku's curiosity pulled him out of his preceding horror.
"Oh, didn't I tell you?" Chichi said off-handedly as though it was of no importance. "After we're done with the reconstruction we're going to have a grand opening exhibition match. It will be our biggest bet for good publicity yet," her mood suddenly darkened into that all too familiar death glare, "and if I find out any one of you was unprepared because of the Krillin incident, I will personally rip you all some new mouths to eat with."
The three nodded woodenly as she switched back once more into her happy, if slightly giddy, mood and not quite skipped to her little pavilion.
"Coach," Chaozu was the first to speak, "your wife's scary."
"Yeah, but she sure can cook!" Goku smiled, receiving a funny look from both of the fighters until Tien suddenly put his hand over his forehead and gasped out a muttered oath.
"Tien, what's wrong?" Chaozu called out, alarmed.
"Crap! I think she gave me a paper-cut in my third eye!"
Birds.
Normally, these sounds would be a welcome awakening for Yamcha, but today the high-pitched twittering seemed to be going out of its way to scratch against his brain. He pulled his pillow over his head with a groan, the ache in his head magnified by their incessant chirruping. The birds' song penetrated through, despite the fighter's efforts, and he randomly shot out an energy blast, hoping it would incinerate, or at least frighten off, the annoying creatures outside his window. He received a prompt "squawk!" and grunted in a satisfied manner before turning over, his head still under his pillow.
It took him a while to realize that, strangely, he was in his own bed.
And even stranger, he did not remember how he got there.
"YAMCHA!"
The scarred fighter bolted upright, only to be nearly taken down again by the searing pain in his head, and the remarkably strong tackle of a certain blue feline. He supported himself up with his arm against the bed, feeling the back of his head and not being surprised to find an extremely large, sore bump elevating past his short hair. "Puar, could you get off me please?" he attempted to push the cuddling cat away from his waist, but to no avail.
"You've been out for days!" the clutching creature squeaked at Yamcha while still refusing to release him. " I was so worried about you! Don't you ever go and pick a fight with Piccolo again!"
Yamcha kept rubbing the back of his head, gingerly brushing his fingers across the new protuberance on his skull. "Piccolo?" he questioned groggily.
"Yeah, Piccolo," Puar looked at him quizzically. "Don't you remember?"
Yamcha stood up and was dismayed to find that he was still in the same clothes he had been before he lost consciousness. They did not smell pretty. "How many days have I been out?"
"Five and a half," answered Puar, circling around her master worriedly. "It's almost noon."
No wonder his clothes stank.
"I was really worried about you, Yamcha," the floating ball of fluff continued. "You should probably eat something now, though. You were unconscious the whole time you were here, so . . ."
Yamcha did not hear anything after that as his mind tried to grasp the drifting memories flitting about in his head, just out of his reach. He walked over to his closet and pulled out a new pair of pants, completely oblivious to the incessant babbling of his life-long companion while chasing after his recollective quarry. The past events of about five days ago slowly came back to him, the misty haze around each one dissipating at the same speed as the lethargic, tired feeling that kept pulling at his eyelids.
*"Goku! Sign her up now!"*
The tryouts. Krillin had been beaten easily, which was no small feat, by a girl. And not just any girl, but . . .
*"Bulma! Don't go giving away our weaknesses to her!"
"Bulma? Bulma Briefs?"*
Listening outside what had served as a makeshift office for Chichi and Goku he had overheard the woman's conversation with his manager and the blonde fighter Eighteen. Bulma, who was the bane of his existence, who was always at his side . . .
*"I am the Tournament Ghost."*
. . . who was being held captive by a sadistic murderer that could live for eternity residing in the place where most of his fondest memories with Bulma were, not to mention where other strange undergoings had occurred. Before, he had not been sure of the Tournament Ghost's existence, but now . . . now he had plenty of reason to believe, and he was holding his girlfriend hostage in the very same stadium that they had dubbed as their "place."
*"Yamcha . . . just tell us where the stadium is . . ."
"But . . . but you don't believe me. The ghost is real, honest!"
"I'm sure it is, Yamcha. And now we're going to go save Bulma. Tell us where the stadium is."
"You're going to help? Great! I'll just come wi—"
"No! I mean, no, you just tell us where it is and get some rest. You must be very tired."
"Well . . .now that you mention it . . . I am a little tired . . ."
"Yes. Now, where is that stadium?"
"Take first street for *yawn* about five miles and take your second right after your pass West Avenue. You can't *yawn, stretch* miss it."*
Sometimes it amazed him how crafty Goku's wife could be. With just a brief awakening after his initial collision with Piccolo's fist and a few drops of sleeping tonic, she had managed to get him to divulge everything that she needed to know without him even suspecting that she was up to something. If there was any one reason he had been unconscious for the past five days, it was because Chichi had overdosed him with that tonic. He was fairly sure by now that Chichi did not help save Bulma, and had other, more self-serving plans for that stadium.
And he was going to find out what they were.
"Yamcha? Yamcha, are you even listening to me?"
"Huh?" the ex-desert bandit started out of his reverie and looked at his feline companion. Puar glared back at him.
"You didn't hear a word I said, did you?" she snapped.
"No," Yamcha looked bashfully at the floor, suddenly finding it interesting to drag his toe in random patterns over the carpeting.
"Honestly, Yamcha," Puar squeaked, "you never listen to a word I say. It happens every time I start talking to you, especially when I ask you to do something. Like this," she pointed to the nearly invisible floor under the surface layer of clothes. "I told you two weeks ago to pick all of this stuff up, but did you listen to me then? No! You just kept on—"
"Puar, I have to go the old stadium right now," Yamcha interrupted.
"See?! You did it again! You're ignoring me!" the little cat looked like she was going to cry.
"Puar, don't worry, I'm not ignoring you," the fighter tried to console his despairing friend. "I'll clean up when I get back. I just have to leave right now. Bye!" he rushed towards the door.
"Yamcha, wait!"
He stopped in the doorway to pass an exasperated glare at her. "What is it now, Puar?"
The cat put a paw over her mouth to smother a giggle. "Aren't you forgetting something?" she glanced down at his legs before looking back up at his face.
"What?" he followed Puar's gaze to see his bare legs and *very* brightly coloured boxers, each grinning yellow happy-face staring back at him. He blushed.
"I thought it felt a little drafty."
"Got any fours?"
"Go fish," Chaozu smiled.
"Darn it!" Goku grumbled as he leaned over and picked a card from the deck. Upon receiving another non-match, he stuffed the offending card in his hand grumbling out, "I never win at this game!"
"You can't be good at everything, Goku," Chaozu lectured sagely. He turned to his left. "Hey, Tien, got any sixes?"
"Man, this hurts like a mother f—"
"Tien!"
The triclops blinked from beneath his new ice pack to his friend. "What?"
Chaozu cleared his throat. "Do you have any sixes?"
"Yeah, hold on," Tien grumbled as he set down the ice and picked up his cards, flicking a six of hearts to the diminutive fighter. Chaozu caught it easily.
"Thanks, Tien," he put the pair in his ever-increasing stack with his chubby, white hand. "Do you have any twos?"
"Go fish."
The smile never leaving his face, Chaozu picked up a two of clubs from the pile and was about to set the cards down in his little accumulation of pairs when . . .
"Hiya, Yamcha!" Goku called out cheerily, despite the fact that he had yet to secure a match in their little card game.
Yamcha closed the door on his aircar, squinting his eyes from the dust and the afternoon sunlight so scrutinize the area around him. *I knew Chichi was up to something! She must have bought this stadium and started repairing it. Oh man . . . I hope they didn't notice that *I* was the one who broke that door down . . .*
"What brings you here?" Goku asked congenially.
"I actually came here to talk to Chichi, if you don't mind, that is . . ."
"I don't mind," the petite brunette said as she walked over to where all the fighters were standing, taking a reprieve from playing slavemaster . . . er . . . contractor. She smirked evilly. "Did you have a nice sleep, Yamcha?"
"Yeah, thanks to those knock-out drops you gave me!" he growled.
Chichi blinked her big black eyes in an attempt to look innocent with a straight face. "But Yamcha, how else was I going to find out where the stadium was?"
"I guess you could've asked Bulma," Chaozu said helpfully.
Yamcha's ears perked up at the sound of Bulma's name.
"Bulma? But I haven't seen her since the tryouts," Chichi said crossing her arms. "I tried calling her at home, but I guess she wasn't there because I got her answering machine."
"You haven't seen Bulma since the tryouts?" Yamcha asked, worried. "But . . . but what if she's still in the—"
A loud crash came from the inside of the stadium as an internal wall was demolished. The sound of the workers shouting orders and the monotonous "bleep-bleep" of the heavy machinery took control of the surprised silence from our select group of fighters.
"BULMA!" Yamcha cried out, running towards the stadium, only to be stopped by Goku's quick reflexes and strong arm.
"Now Yamcha," Goku said, smiling even through the panicked look the fighter's eyes, "we've already checked the stadium before we started the reconstruction. No one's in there but those workers."
"But . . ."
Goku sighed exasperatedly. "Yamcha, Bulma is *not* in there. We haven't seen her since she was at the tryouts. Relax. Sit down. Play some cards with us. Chaozu, deal us in."
"Right!" the little doll-faced fighter agreed, scraping up all the cards to shuffle as a full deck.
"Uh, no thanks Goku," Yamcha composed himself enough to decline politely. "I really need to talk with Chichi."
Goku shrugged. "Okay then."
"But now we have to start the game over," Chaozu stopped in mid-shuffle.
"Oh well. Maybe I'll have a better game this time around," Goku put his hand behind his head and laughed.
Chaozu hmphed. "You're just a sore loser, Coach."
"I am not!" Goku pouted childishly.
Chichi simply smiled at the sheer immaturity of her husband. He never really was good at cards. Walking beside Yamcha until they were out of earshot from the game she turned to him and asked, "So what did you want to talk to me about?"
Yamcha blushed and looked down at his feet. "Well, it's . . . it's a-about . . . uh . . . Bulma."
"What about her?"
"Well, you see . . . uh . . ." he stammered.
"Oh, out with it already," the small brunette demanded, impatient by this stuttering when she had better things to do, namely whipping some of those lazy construction workers back in line.
"WeusedtodateeachotherandnowIdon'tthinksheevenknowsIexistandIneedhelp," he rushed out.
Chichi translated. "So . . . you used to date each other and now you don't think she knows you exist. Do you still like her, or do you just want her back because you find her familiar?"
"Chichi, I'm in love with this woman!" Yamcha chose as his answer. "She's my night and my day! When she walks in the room, everything's in slow- motion and I feel—"
"Okay, okay. So you're in love with her. Why don't you tell her that?"
"Well first of all, I haven't been able to get a hold of her since the night of the tryouts," Yamcha began ticking off items on his fingers. "Second, I don't know exactly what to say to her because third of all, she might have changed over the past five years."
"Are you sure that you didn't change?" Chichi asked.
"Well, no. I don't think I did, but it's pretty hard to gauge if you've changed or not. To yourself, you're always just the same as you were a few seconds ago."
*Not all the time,* Chichi thought, remembering back to the sudden change she had undergone when she had given birth to Gohan. The once timid, fragile girl had, within the space of time that she had heard those first few gasping cries that signified the creation of a new life, become a strong, protective mother, and, in all the word's definitive entirety, a woman. She distinctly remembered that change. "Well then," she blinked back that beautiful memory, "why don't you just tell her how you feel anyway. It sure would take a lot of the pressure off you. And we certainly don't need pressure on you before the grand opening, now do we?"
"But how do I tell her?" Yamcha sat down on a conveniently located piece of debris from the stadium's reconstruction. He ran his hands through his cropped hair in a frustrated manner.
"Well," Chichi surmised, "since you don't seem to want personal contact, why don't you try with a note and schedule to meet her somewhere?"
"But where would I leave the note? We haven't been able to find her, remember?"
"You did say that you saw her come into this stadium, didn't you?" Chichi answered his question with a question.
"Yeah, but . . ."
"Then why don't you just leave the note where you last saw her? I'm sure she'll find it."
Yamcha blinked articulately before coming up with another complaint about her suggestion. "But how do we know that she'll come back here? The Tournament Ghost—"
"—is just a legend. I am absolutely positive that *that* particular load of crap doesn't exist," Chichi said haughtily, her nose slightly lifting into the air.
"What makes you so sure?" he asked skeptically.
She winked at him, holding a familiar piece of paper in her hand. "Because ghost's can't use pens. Now go on and get that girl already. I've got other things to do besides give romance advice."
*That seems like a pretty sketchy answer to what's been going on, but then again, so is believing in a ghost,* Yamcha supposed. Perhaps Chichi was right. Perhaps he was just hallucinating because of some bad food. Perhaps Bulma would come back and see his note. Perhaps everything was as it should be.
"Goku! Stop trying to look at my cards!"
"I'm not cheating, I swear!"
"Great, just great. Now I've got paper-cuts on my fingers from these cards."
Oh yes, everything was just fine.
Chichi smiled as she walked over to her husband. "Goku, just face it. You're not good at cards and you never will be. Now come on, we've got work to do."
Tien snorted, still dabbing his ice pack on his wounded eye. "Like figure out a way to catch Krillin red-handed?"
Yamcha blinked, confused. "Krillin? What did he do?"
Chichi crossed her arms, closing her eyes and scowling a bit. "Oh nothing much really. He only tried to sabotage all that I've worked for by putting himself in league with Kame Team because of that blonde-haired hussy Eighteen."
"What?" Yamcha said with a shocked expression on his face.
Chichi took a deep, I'm-going-to-start-my-ranting-now breath as the rest of the fighters prepared to cover their ears for her own scathing explanation of her solution for the Krillin problem.
"You just had to get her started, didn't you?" Chaozu accused Tien.
Sabotage, betrayal, unrequited romance, mystery, and a bit of supernatural on the side. Ah yes, everything was just fine.
Something was wrong with this whole picture, Piccolo had concluded. He was never one to believe in the paranormal, but the incidents associated with the old stadium that Goku's harpy wife had insisted on purchasing were just too unreal and too coincidental. Someone, or some*thing* was behind all of this, and Piccolo was going to find out exactly what was going on around here.
"Never thought I'd see the day when I came to *his* door asking for help," he muttered as he grasped the gilded doorknocker in his green hand, rapping it in a steady rhythm "That old coot better be home . . ." he grumbled.
No sooner had his words trailed off the door opened briskly, allowing him to see the dark face of Mr. Popo. The little genie tilted his head in recognition. "Ah, Piccolo," he greeted sociably, "it's very nice to see you, sir. Please come inside. It's getting awfully chilly out about now," he glanced to the nearly set sun on the horizon.
Piccolo refused to say anything as he stepped through the door, Popo closing it behind him. His emerald face stoically gazed forward as he took in the plain, yet lavish surroundings of the house of one of the most prestigious tournament judges in history. Though the house was an opulent size, the ornamentation consisted solely of white marble and a few gold trimmings for variation of the cold white. The polished columns and smooth white floor glistened in the scant moonlight that passed through the embellished windows, giving the room the feeling of a museum after closing time. After a while, Mr. Popo coughed, the sound echoing in the cavernous room and calling attention to himself before speaking.
"Have you come here to see Kami?" the plump servant inquired politely.
Piccolo merely focused a glance in Popo's direction, barely able to distinguish the dark man's form from the shadows of the house's interior. Popo cleared his throat again and took that as a yes.
"Well then, right this way," he ascended a great staircase to the upper level of the house, Piccolo falling in behind him. Reaching the top, Popo led the tall Namek to a door at the end of the hall, the light filtering between the cracks indicating that it was occupied. Piccolo wasted no more time in formalities and opened the door roughly before Mr. Popo could get a word in edgewise.
"All right, Old Man. I want some answers. Now."
In the weak lamplight, one could barely make out the wrinkled, aged features of another Namekian, his scrutinous black eyes lifting off a paper he was reviewing to greet this newcomer. His desk sprouted a forest of deeds, documents, and other miscellaneous forms, each neatly placed into towering stacks that loomed over the elderly green man. Kami smiled wryly.
"So, Piccolo. I see you've finally decided to visit me. And willingly at that."
Piccolo growled. "You know I'd never visit you unless I needed something. I want information."
Kami's smile broadened as he set down the paper that he was reading previously. "Well, I see your manners haven't changed."
"I didn't come her to discuss my manners, you old bag!" Piccolo slammed his fist on the desk, causing the ice in Kami's glass of water to clink and two stacks of paper to fall to the floor. "I came to figure out what's going on!"
"Going on where?" Kami questioned nonchalantly, resuming his reading of the paper before him.
"At the old stadium on First Street," Piccolo ground out, irritated at his elder's passiveness.
"What about it?" Kami ceased his reading and straightened out one of the disheveled stacks.
"What do you mean 'what about it?'" the younger Namek bellowed. "Six years and three months ago two bodies were found at ringside in that stadium, shortly after their primary promoter was killed under 'unknown circumstances.' The stadium was abandoned from then on, but four years ago there were complaints of flashing lights and screaming coming from it. Just this week someone's claimed to have seen a woman abducted there. The rumours say that it's some sort of ghost. I. Want. To. Know. What's. Going. On."
Kami merely kept reorganizing his desk from Piccolo's assault prior. He diligently opened his drawer, placing his many pens within it, then closing it with an audible 'click' before moving on to sorting his papers. After about a minute of waiting, he finally had his desk arranged to his satisfaction and glanced up with a look that read something along the lines of: 'Oh, you're still here? Silly me.'
Kami smirk returned. "I'm surprised you haven't figured it out on your own by now."
"And just what do you mean by that?!" Piccolo swiped his arm across the desk, effectively ruining Kami's past efforts of cleanliness. Popo scurried to the other side of the desk to try to repair the damage.
"You really don't remember, do you Piccolo?"
"Don't remember what?!" Piccolo demanded.
Kami let out a low chuckle before beginning his story, then suddenly turned serious.
"You were there. About seven years ago a man named Frieza blazed a path of destruction that encompassed most of the planet. Not one person could escape his mighty arm, and they either fell dead to him, were kept as prisoners, or reluctantly bowed to him. Have I sparked your memory yet, Piccolo?"
Piccolo kept a stony expression. "Go on."
"Of course," Kami nodded his head. "We were two of those that were kept as prisoners after Frieza had burned our village to the ground and slaughtered most of the inhabitants. Do you remember that too, Piccolo?"
Piccolo said nothing, and Kami took it as an affirmative to continue.
"And I'll bet you also recall exactly how those dungeons looked, felt, and smelled, don't you? Well, do you remember then, Piccolo, what you did? You broke us out of our chains and led an escape, though only four of us were left alive to attempt it. You remember that, don't you?"
"Of course I remember that, Old Man. I just don't se the correlation between that little incident and the situation at the old stadium," Piccolo said in a strangely subdued way.
"The correlation is, Piccolo," Kami frowned, "that while you made our escape attempt, you diverted Frieza's attention from one of his subjects. Now don't tell me you can't see the correlation between that and the stadium."
Slowly, as though sorting through memories, Piccolo's eyes widened in recognition and he gradually removed his hand from the desk and backed away. "You mean that I . . ."
Kami solemnly shook his head in a concurring manner. "Yes."
"And that man we saw . . ."
"Yes."
There was silence for a moment before Piccolo's eyes suddenly went from shocked to resolute and he turned around with a, "Thanks for the information, Old Man. Don't expect me back any time soon."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Kami slipped back into his cordial manner.
Piccolo made it about ten steps before he glanced sidelong at the senior Namek and asked almost too softly to be heard, "How is the Namek Restoration Project going?"
"It's going quite well, actually. We should have most them in homes by the end of this year."
Piccolo nodded and stepped past the doorway without another word, his white cape swishing behind him and an expression on his face that looked as though he could care less about what he had been told, signifying the end of his part of the conversation. The sound of his pointed brown shoes brushing softly across the marble floor finally disappeared as Mr. Popo finished reorganizing the papers on Kami's desk, the brown genie looking in his master's direction when he heard the older Namekian address no one in particular.
"Funny thing is, most of the funding seems to be coming from a certain martial arts trainer," the wise old Namek smiled. "I think there's hope for you yet, Piccolo. There's hope for you yet."
And Popo was left to figure out what that meant on his own.
Bulma wiped her brow, the coolness in the air contrasting uncomfortably with the heat her body emitted from her long night of training. Exhaustedly, she stepped down from the small replica of the tournament arena, its white tiles shining in the faint fluorescent lighting of the training room. She padded to the white sink, her sneakers accidentally stepping in a puddle from the leaking pipe because of the dimmed lighting. Muttering something about careless reconstruction workers, she turned on the sink and splashed herself with the cool water to clear the salty sweat from her face. Wiping her face on the towel provided, she stepped lightly to her bag, pulling out a change of clothes and vanishing behind the large folding screen. Her clothes changed, her lessons over, and her body exhausted, she sat on the edge of the miniature fighting ring, her bag at her side and her head in her hand.
Not for the first time in the past few months, Bulma wondered how she had gotten where she was. It seemed like only yesterday that she stepped into the old stadium for no reason she could fathom and heard the voice of the ghost or angel or whatever that she had affectionately, in a loose sense, dubbed as 'Grumpy.' Everything was so different from the way things were five years ago, it became difficult to even remember that time. From what Bulma could piece together, those times were full of laughter, happiness, long walks on the beach, trips to the park, and kissing on the front porch.
They were also monotonous and boring. Though she had not felt so at the time, she could tell now that if she went back to that, it would never feel the same. Ever since that day she had walked into the stadium that dark night, the chance to train for the tournaments gave her a feeling of excitement, adrenaline, and . . . something that she could not quite place. Now she had something to look forward to, and she had no idea what the result would be.
And she liked that.
That was not to say that she had second thoughts about this training. As much as she was learning and as skilled as she had become, she could not help the feeling that her 'trainer' was always hiding something. It was one thing to say that you were dead. It was quite another to claim to be a homicidal spectre. Bulma had come to the conclusion that this man was either covering something, or was very much insane. But as long as Bulma kept improving in her martial arts, she decided to overlook that. Though, that did not mean it was far from her mind every time she spoke with 'Grumpy.'
'Grumpy' confused her to no end. One minute he was as closed off as a dead end street, the next she could almost swear that he was cracking a smile. He laughed, he joked, and he was even almost *nice* on occasion, albeit those three actions came rarely unless it was at her expense. If all ghosts were like this, Bulma was pretty sure she would not mind meeting them.
And that was another thing on Bulma's mind. Though she had spoken with the ghost, trained with him, and even laughed with him on those rare occasions he was in an amiable mood, she had never actually met him face to face. Sure, she had come to know his moods, expressions, and all around character through the mere inflection of his rough voice, but there was just something special about your first actual meeting. And the fact that she had never spoken to Grumpy in person aggravated her. He seemed to find amusement in playing with her mind indirectly, so she would be at a disadvantage countering.
Well, that was something she would just have to change.
"Contemplating the universe, are we Woman?"
Bulma snapped up from her speculations and smiled. "Well you know us geniuses. Always analyzing something."
"Hn. You should give it a rest and go home. You've had a long day."
Bulma laughed a little. "Why Grumpy, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were actually concerned for me!"
"Hardly," the room snorted disdainfully. "I just don't want to have to train a dead sack of crap tomorrow night."
"Oh of course," Bulma said sarcastically. She took her mentor's hint and picked up her bag, heading out the door, rolling her eyes along the way. "Try not to kill any construction workers tomorrow. I know they're annoying, but they're only doing their job, Grumpy."
Grumpy hmphed. "They should do their job somewhere else. These rooms are in perfect condition."
"Fine, whatever," Bulma surrendered to his stubbornness. "Just no casualties, okay?"
"Agreed."
"Stubborn, stuck-up jerk," she muttered as she passed through the doorway.
"Moronic, melodramatic woman," Grumpy countered.
He got a slammed door in response.
Bulma did not know whether to laugh or fume. They always departed the same way. She would insult him, he would insult her, and she'd slam the door on him. That was pretty much the only predictable event in her day. The same types of insults, the same sound of the slamming door, the same reverberation in the hallway, the same note fluttering to the floor . . . wait a minute . . .
Bulma stooped and picked up the falling scrap of paper, noting the piece of tape that had been used to attach it to the door, but had proved ineffectual to her slamming it. She examined the handwriting on quickly scribbled 'Bulma' written on the front, though she could not exactly place where she had seen it before. Seeing no other writing on that side, she turned it over, reading softly to herself.
*"Nothing has changed. I've kept my promise and come back to you. Meet me here tomorrow night. I haven't forgotten you."*
. . . and the plot thickens . . .
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yay! I'm alive! And I wrote an extra long chapter! Woohoo! Okay . . . PLEASE REVIEW MY STORY! One of the reasons why this took so long is because of the LACK OF SUPPORT from SOME PEOPLE. *coughcough, Jason, coughcough* Well, I'm sorry for the whole 'contemplativeness' of this chapter, but it's necessary. There are MANY things going on here, and people have to pay attention to all the stuff in the background to understand future chapters. So, if you just skimmed over it, go and read it again, because a lot of stuff is major foreshadowing. Anywho, all of you must read 'ROMANCE IDIOTS WITH HIGH KI' by ZippyDragon*43 in case you didn't get my liminal and subliminal messages. I hope to hear from you all in YOUR REVIEWS. Love you all (but I love you more WHEN YOU REVIEW)!
~Chunks
Oh and by the way, does anyone know what those folding changing screens are called? I'm tired of repeating the whole 'folding screen' and 'changing screen' and just the word 'screen' in general.
^_^ Have a nice day AFTER YOU REVIEW. Sorry. Some people are really dense.
REVIEW!
REVIEW!
REVIEW!
I'm going for 20, okay? Give me twenty or I'll post an author's note on why I need reviews. I'm warning you! I'll do it too! Don't think I won't do it!
Liminal Message: Read ZippyDragon*43's 'Romance Idiots With High Ki.' It is cool and all and she is my Homie G Funk Dawg from the West Saieed and my own personal Funnie Wonder.
Subliminal Message: rednoW einnuF lanosrep nwo ym dna deeiaS tseW eht morf gwaD knuF G eimoH ym si ehs dna lla dna looc si tI '.iK hgiH htiW stoidI ecnamoR' s'34*nogarDyppiZ daeR
And now, on with the fic! Tallyho!
Little Lotte and Questionnaire
"No, what I love best," Lotte said,
"Is when I'm asleep in my bed
And the Angel of Music
Sings songs in my head!"
"A little to the left. That's right . . . keep her going . . ." Chichi directed the construction workers as if she owned them. The sun beat down on the sight, making the industrious workers a bit lethargic and even the overseers in their shady pavilion sweat. The warm air rippled to the eyes like an atmospheric lake around the old stadium now being remodeled. Chichi wiped her brow of sweat before inhaling another lungful of air to continue ordering the labourers around.
"Chichi," Goku stopped her short, "I think they're doing fine on their own. I mean look," he pointed to some men directing a cement truck, "doesn't it seem like they know what they're doing?"
Chichi smiled guilelessly to her husband and cupped his cheek in her hand. "Of course they know what they're doing, Sweetie. I'm just making sure they do it right," she released him and walked off to go find a megaphone.
Goku smiled and sighed. That was his Chichi. He turned to look at the rest of the newly purchased sight, the sound of Chichi's commands amplified by a megaphone just a little too much for his ears to handle. Despite the unbearable heat, he saw Krillin and Tien both flying around, playing keep-away with Chaozu, the doll-faced fighter desperately trying to get his little hat from the two. Gohan sat in the shade of an unused truck, contentedly humming a little tune as his pencil scratched at his studies while Piccolo stood nearby, not letting his pupil stray far from his sight. Yamcha was conspicuously absent.
Goku headed over toward the tall Namekian, his cheerful demeanour wavering at the sight of his scrutinous silence. He calmly took his place beside him, waiting for him to speak first. There was a long pause where neither said anything.
"I don't trust it," Piccolo finally spoke, staring at the large form of the stadium as bits and pieces were being replaced on it.
"Don't trust what?" Goku asked, cocking his head to the side.
Piccolo narrowed his eyes. "This place gives me a strange feeling about it. Something's not right here."
Goku blinked and looked at the remnants of the stadium, and, obviously not seeing anything odd about the building, turned back to his son's tutor. "I don't know. It seems pretty normal to me."
"There's been rumour about this place . . ." Piccolo started.
"Don't tell me you believe all that stuff about the Tournament Ghost!" Goku said. "I thought you of all people would be smart enough to tell the difference between a neighbourhood legend and solid fact."
"I'm not saying I believe it's an actual ghost," Piccolo glanced sidelong at Goku, "but there have been strange occurrences around here in the years when this stadium was used."
"Like those massacres?"
"Exactly," Piccolo turned his gaze forward again. "I'm no expert on the supernatural, but I'm pretty sure they can get their point across without bloodshed. I've also been checking the old papers," he frowned grimly. "It seems the victims were attacked by energy blasts."
"Energy blasts? Like from a fighter?" Goku looked at him sharply.
Piccolo did not respond. His dark eyes held a calculating look, as though they were scanning information files within his mind. Finally he blinked and looked at his pupil's father, and in a loose sense, his friend.
"I have an inside source on this place. I'm going to look in into this and find out what's at the bottom of this little mystery." With a swirl of his white mantel the tall Namek exited with a determined note to his steps.
"Okay, you do that," Goku said in an uplifting manner. As he watched Piccolo head off to his "inside source," the he began to become aware of the intense head of the midday sun. Despite the shade he now stood in, he felt a cool drink was in order and stepped lightly toward the pavilion where his wife still preoccupied herself with instructing the unfortunate construction crew on how to properly rebuild a stadium.
"How's it coming?" he asked as he opened up a bottle of water.
Chichi took a break from her "helpful hints" to answer her husband. "I can't judge for sure, but it should be done in about a week. It's not totaled, but it was in pretty bad shape. We'll have to postpone that party with Kame Team, though."
Goku's face fell. "So no buffet?"
"Sorry, Goku," she patted his shoulder sympathetically, "no buffet."
"Miss Chichi! Miss Chichi!"
Chichi whirled around from her husband to see a small labourer rushing towards her, his round face pale and his hard hat jouncing around on his head as he ran. His feet shuffled him to a stop in front of the shady pavilion, kicking up a bit of dust that made him cough as he took deep breaths to calm himself.
Chichi looked concerned in that motherly way of hers, but managed to keep her voice crisp and matter-of-fact. "What's the problem?"
With a shaking hand, the worker delivered a small, white envelope in the expectant woman's hand. Chichi held it closer to her eyes and read the front out loud:
"*To the Newest Managers of My Stadium*"
Goku and Chichi exchanged a glance and Goku set his water down to read the letter with his wife. Chichi sat down and opened the seal of the letter, unfolding the document within and continuing to read aloud.
"*My Dearest Benefactors:
Congratulations on your purchase of the Grand Stadium. I look forward to becoming quite well acquainted with its new managers and the fighters you bring onto the premises. I must request of you, however, that you do no construction on the training rooms. I can assure you they are in perfect working order. I request a monthly salary of five thousand zeni for allowing you to use my extensive facility and would appreciate it if the north tier of seats on the high balcony level in the arena would remain unsold at every tournament. These will be reserved especially for me. I will expect that my demands will be followed to the letter and I will receive my salary within the week. If you are concerned of where to leave the money, just place it on your desk in your office before you exit. I will collect it during the night. Follow my demands, and all will be well. If not, prepare for disaster.
Sincerely Yours,
T.G.*"
"T.G.?" Goku questioned. "What does that stand for?"
Chichi gave him that 'you're-such-an-idiot-but-I-love-you-anyway' look and stated the obvious. "It probably stands for Tournament Ghost," she then directed her gaze to the messenger. "Where did you get this?"
The little man looked up at her with wide eyes that seemed to scream that they had seen what they should not have seen. "I-it was posted on the door of the m-manager's office, ma'am."
"Thank you," Chichi waved him off with her hand. "You can get back to work now."
"No ma'am."
Chichi glared sharply at the mutinous workman. "What do you mean 'no'?"
"I quit," he set his hardhat down on the table near Goku's water, the impact sending ripples throughout the clear liquid, and rushed off without another word.
Goku looked after him with a confused expression. "What do you suppose got into him?"
Chichi held the letter up and scanned it once more with an enigmatic look in her eyes.
"Maybe he ran into our little friend here," she whispered with all seriousness.
"Come on, Chaozu! I know you can be faster than that!" Krillin taunted lightheartedly.
"This isn't funny, Krillin!" Chaozu flew to retrieve his little black hat only to see it soar once again away from him and into Tien's eager hand. Tien held it high and smirked a bit when Chaozu flew up to get it, his fingers just missing the elusive article.
"Tien! I thought we were friends!" the small fighter whined.
Tien's three eyes softened a bit and he knelt down to hand the hat to Chaozu, who eagerly snatched it from him. "We're always friends, Chaozu. We're were just messing with you."
"Speaking of messes," Krillin smiled, "have either of you guys seen Yamcha around? I haven't seen the slob since the tryouts."
"No, I haven't," Tien said, looking confused. "That's weird. He should be here. After all, he did find the place for us."
Chaozu looked up at the triclops. "No he didn't. That girl did. At least that's what Chichi said."
"What girl? The one that beat Krillin up?" Tien asked.
"Hey!" Krillin shouted indignantly. "For your information, that girl just happens to be Bulma Briefs, the richest woman on Earth, so obviously she can afford the best training around! That's the only reason why she beat me!"
"Sure," Tien said, not really paying attention to the smaller man's vehement denials. "How did you find out her name anyway, Krillin? Did Chichi tell you? She didn't tell me and Chaozu."
Krillin stopped short and blinked, his hand reaching behind his head and a rosy blush tinting his cheeks. "I uh . . . well . . . ah . . ." he stuttered, his face reddening with each half-uttered syllable.
"Krillin! Are we leaving or what?!"
All seven eyes turned to see the lovely Android Eighteen leaning against her sporty red aircar, the wax job matching the steely glint in her eye. The daggers she glared were enough to turn any man's legs to jelly, but they seemed to have a particularly strong effect on Krillin. "I'm waiting," she directed her voice to the small ex-monk, her tone indicating that she would not do so for long.
"Uh, right! Coming!" Krillin suddenly snapped to attention, his smile becoming more pronounced and even more embarrassed, if that were even possible as he scurried toward the beautiful blonde.
"Byeguys!" he rushed out in one word that was barely heard over the dust he kicked up in his hurried departure. Before Tien and Chaozu could blink, the car sped off, all hopes of an explanation leaving with it.
For a while, no one said anything.
"You don't suppose . . ." Tien began, all three eyes still maintaining the expression of shock and confusion that had appeared at Krillin's hasty exit.
"No . . . Krillin knows the rules. He's not stupid enough to break them . . ." Chaozu said half-heartedly, his eyes still focused on the direction of which the car had left.
" . . . is he?" they said in unison.
"Well, Chichi," Goku surmised as he reread at the mysterious letter horizontally, "you don't *know* that the ghost wrote this. It could be some sort of prank."
Chichi's worried eyes suddenly snapped to hard obsidian. "What?" she growled ominously low in her throat.
"You know," Goku carried on, oblivious to his wife's warning tone, "I've never actually known a ghost to write anything. Wouldn't the pen pass through their hand? Come to think of it, I've never actually known any ghosts at all . . ."
Chichi's fists began to clench spasmodically while her left eye twitched in an uneven rhythm.
"Hmm . . ." Goku pondered, turning the letter once again so that it was currently upside-down, "for a ghost this guy has really neat handwriting."
"WOULD YOU JUST DROP IT ABOUT THE GHOST THING, GOKU?!!"
Goku blinked in a bewildered manner. "No need to yell, Chichi. I'm right here."
If Chichi could grind her teeth any harder, they would be nothing but gums. She snatched the letter with an abruptness that shocked her husband, despite his frequent exposure to supernatural speed. "We're going to have a look into this mess, Goku," she snarled, gripping her newly attained letter so tightly her husband feared her fingernails would puncture through and injure her hands, "starting with our beloved team members."
"But I'm sure they didn't d—" his sentence ended suddenly as she dragged him towards the clearing in the construction work where Tien and Chaozu still stood dumbstruck by the events that had previously transpired.
"All right, which one of you is the wise guy who wrote this?!" Chichi demanded.
Both the triclops and the midget did not respond, however, their mouths did gape a bit.
"ANSWER ME!"
Tien and Chaozu jumped with a start and turned around to face a horror beyond all horrors: Chichi in a *very* bad mood.
"WHICH ONE OF YOU WROTE THIS LETTER?!" she shoved the offending paper in the closest face, which just happened to be Tien's.
"Chfchf, ithha lmphteh clofta mfath . . ."
Completely ignoring Tien's complaint, she continued:
"I didn't spend our savings on this stadium just so some snot-nosed punk could pull such a moronic prank to get me to waste five thousand zeni a month to pay for god-knows-what while he sits in his expensive house that *our* money paid for, laughing at us the entire time! If I find out who did this I swear I'll rip off both his arms and beat him with them until he looses consciousness! Then I'll shove this letter right up his—"
"Chichi, calm down," Goku tried to placate his volatile wife.
"Calm down?!" she screeched in such a volume that the others had to cover their ears (except for Tien, who, unfortunately, could not slip his hands around the letter firmly planted in his face in time to save himself from her vocal onslaught). "CALM DOWN?! No I will *not* calm down! Not when someone is trying to intimidate me into giving them five thousand zeni, FIVE THOUSAND ZENI, and is most likely a member of our team!"
"Uh, Miss Chichi," Chaozu said meekly, "I don't think Tien can breathe."
Chichi blinked and pulled the letter away from Tien's face, which now sported a lovely shade of blue that could rival Bulma's hair any day. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Tien," Chichi's mood did a complete one-eighty.
"S'aright," he managed to gasp out.
Chichi put a pensive finger to her lips. "Now where was I . . . oh yes. One of you better confess right now and maybe, MAYBE, I'll let you off with a quick, simple kill . . ." her sentence tapered off with a menacing note.
Having now regained his composure, Tien decided the best way out of this situation would be to take the path of self-preservation. "We didn't write it, Chichi, I swear!"
"Oh?" she raised her brow in a scrutinous manner. "Then who did?"
"It wasn't us, Miss Chichi, honest!" little Chaozu defended himself and his friend.
"Where's Krillin?" Goku innocently tried to change the subject. Oh, Goku, when will you ever learn? You are just adding more fuel to the fire . . .
"Krillin's missing?" Chichi said suspiciously. "And just where did he go, hmm?"
"He and Eighteen left just a few minutes ago," Chaozu pointed in their direction of departure.
"WITH EIGHTEEN?! So he's helping the enemy! That's why he wrote the letter!" Chichi pieced it together.
"Hey, Chichi, are you sure?" Goku tried to placate her. "I mean, Krillin's a good guy. He wouldn't go and switch sides on us . . ."
"Oh, wouldn't he? Come on Goku!" she whirled on him. "Look at the facts! He's obviously in league with Kame Team and is trying to make sure we don't have enough money to support our fighters in the tournament, granting a complete victory for them! Obviously Roshi's slyer than we thought . . ." she puzzled out.
"You think Roshi's behind this? Really, Chichi, I thought you were better than that," Goku reprimanded his wife. "Roshi's been our friend for years! The most he has against us is just some friendly competition."
"Friendly competition my foot," Chichi growled. "He wants to ruin us! And he's using that blonde bimbo to do it too!"
"But Chichi! I thought you and Eighteen were friends!" Goku was taken aback by her hostility.
"*Were* friends, Goku!" she spat out. "We're not anymore! Do friends try to start revolutions in other friends' teams? I don't think so!"
"Chichi," Tien managed to squeeze his two cents in before the mercurial wife of his coach could start another rant, "you know the only reason we can beat Team Ginyu is because Kame Team helps us gang up on them in the team fighting. Don't you see how this could ruin our chances to win? We need Kame Team on our side."
Chichi hmphed, crossing her arms over her chest and scowling down at her feet. For all that she hated to admit it, the triclops had a point. If she cut their ties to the Kame Team, their chances at beating the opposition, namely Team Ginyu, would go down the toilet. The members of Team Ginyu were clumsy, oafish, and downright stupid, but they could fight like no tomorrow. In the individual rounds of the tournament, Chichi and Goku's Dragon Team had no problem beating the bumbling behemoths, but during the team fighting, Ginyu could never be defeated if Kame Team did not step in and help out. Without Kame Team, the Dragon Team was, for lack of a better word, screwed.
"Fine," Chichi consented. "We won't break out of our little unspoken agreement with Kame Team, but we won't mention this conversation to Krillin at all, got it?"
"But Chichi," Goku pleaded, "we can't just not tell him! I'm telling you, he didn't write it!"
"Krillin will be put on a secret trial period until our grand opening fight. None of you will tell Krillin about any of this. We will watch Krillin's actions carefully and judge whether or not he is a loyal member of our team."
"What if he isn't?" Chaozu asked worriedly.
"He will be cut from the team and will not receive any of his salary from the beginning of the year."
All others around her blanched. It was a fate worse than death, it was.
"I'll expect you men not to let your friendship impair your judgement on this matter," Chichi said curtly, "and I don't want you to let this get in the way of your fighting. I want my fighters to be nice and strong for the big opening," she allowed herself a little smile as she abruptly turned and headed off to continue overseeing the reconstruction.
"What's this 'big opening,' Chichi?" Goku's curiosity pulled him out of his preceding horror.
"Oh, didn't I tell you?" Chichi said off-handedly as though it was of no importance. "After we're done with the reconstruction we're going to have a grand opening exhibition match. It will be our biggest bet for good publicity yet," her mood suddenly darkened into that all too familiar death glare, "and if I find out any one of you was unprepared because of the Krillin incident, I will personally rip you all some new mouths to eat with."
The three nodded woodenly as she switched back once more into her happy, if slightly giddy, mood and not quite skipped to her little pavilion.
"Coach," Chaozu was the first to speak, "your wife's scary."
"Yeah, but she sure can cook!" Goku smiled, receiving a funny look from both of the fighters until Tien suddenly put his hand over his forehead and gasped out a muttered oath.
"Tien, what's wrong?" Chaozu called out, alarmed.
"Crap! I think she gave me a paper-cut in my third eye!"
Birds.
Normally, these sounds would be a welcome awakening for Yamcha, but today the high-pitched twittering seemed to be going out of its way to scratch against his brain. He pulled his pillow over his head with a groan, the ache in his head magnified by their incessant chirruping. The birds' song penetrated through, despite the fighter's efforts, and he randomly shot out an energy blast, hoping it would incinerate, or at least frighten off, the annoying creatures outside his window. He received a prompt "squawk!" and grunted in a satisfied manner before turning over, his head still under his pillow.
It took him a while to realize that, strangely, he was in his own bed.
And even stranger, he did not remember how he got there.
"YAMCHA!"
The scarred fighter bolted upright, only to be nearly taken down again by the searing pain in his head, and the remarkably strong tackle of a certain blue feline. He supported himself up with his arm against the bed, feeling the back of his head and not being surprised to find an extremely large, sore bump elevating past his short hair. "Puar, could you get off me please?" he attempted to push the cuddling cat away from his waist, but to no avail.
"You've been out for days!" the clutching creature squeaked at Yamcha while still refusing to release him. " I was so worried about you! Don't you ever go and pick a fight with Piccolo again!"
Yamcha kept rubbing the back of his head, gingerly brushing his fingers across the new protuberance on his skull. "Piccolo?" he questioned groggily.
"Yeah, Piccolo," Puar looked at him quizzically. "Don't you remember?"
Yamcha stood up and was dismayed to find that he was still in the same clothes he had been before he lost consciousness. They did not smell pretty. "How many days have I been out?"
"Five and a half," answered Puar, circling around her master worriedly. "It's almost noon."
No wonder his clothes stank.
"I was really worried about you, Yamcha," the floating ball of fluff continued. "You should probably eat something now, though. You were unconscious the whole time you were here, so . . ."
Yamcha did not hear anything after that as his mind tried to grasp the drifting memories flitting about in his head, just out of his reach. He walked over to his closet and pulled out a new pair of pants, completely oblivious to the incessant babbling of his life-long companion while chasing after his recollective quarry. The past events of about five days ago slowly came back to him, the misty haze around each one dissipating at the same speed as the lethargic, tired feeling that kept pulling at his eyelids.
*"Goku! Sign her up now!"*
The tryouts. Krillin had been beaten easily, which was no small feat, by a girl. And not just any girl, but . . .
*"Bulma! Don't go giving away our weaknesses to her!"
"Bulma? Bulma Briefs?"*
Listening outside what had served as a makeshift office for Chichi and Goku he had overheard the woman's conversation with his manager and the blonde fighter Eighteen. Bulma, who was the bane of his existence, who was always at his side . . .
*"I am the Tournament Ghost."*
. . . who was being held captive by a sadistic murderer that could live for eternity residing in the place where most of his fondest memories with Bulma were, not to mention where other strange undergoings had occurred. Before, he had not been sure of the Tournament Ghost's existence, but now . . . now he had plenty of reason to believe, and he was holding his girlfriend hostage in the very same stadium that they had dubbed as their "place."
*"Yamcha . . . just tell us where the stadium is . . ."
"But . . . but you don't believe me. The ghost is real, honest!"
"I'm sure it is, Yamcha. And now we're going to go save Bulma. Tell us where the stadium is."
"You're going to help? Great! I'll just come wi—"
"No! I mean, no, you just tell us where it is and get some rest. You must be very tired."
"Well . . .now that you mention it . . . I am a little tired . . ."
"Yes. Now, where is that stadium?"
"Take first street for *yawn* about five miles and take your second right after your pass West Avenue. You can't *yawn, stretch* miss it."*
Sometimes it amazed him how crafty Goku's wife could be. With just a brief awakening after his initial collision with Piccolo's fist and a few drops of sleeping tonic, she had managed to get him to divulge everything that she needed to know without him even suspecting that she was up to something. If there was any one reason he had been unconscious for the past five days, it was because Chichi had overdosed him with that tonic. He was fairly sure by now that Chichi did not help save Bulma, and had other, more self-serving plans for that stadium.
And he was going to find out what they were.
"Yamcha? Yamcha, are you even listening to me?"
"Huh?" the ex-desert bandit started out of his reverie and looked at his feline companion. Puar glared back at him.
"You didn't hear a word I said, did you?" she snapped.
"No," Yamcha looked bashfully at the floor, suddenly finding it interesting to drag his toe in random patterns over the carpeting.
"Honestly, Yamcha," Puar squeaked, "you never listen to a word I say. It happens every time I start talking to you, especially when I ask you to do something. Like this," she pointed to the nearly invisible floor under the surface layer of clothes. "I told you two weeks ago to pick all of this stuff up, but did you listen to me then? No! You just kept on—"
"Puar, I have to go the old stadium right now," Yamcha interrupted.
"See?! You did it again! You're ignoring me!" the little cat looked like she was going to cry.
"Puar, don't worry, I'm not ignoring you," the fighter tried to console his despairing friend. "I'll clean up when I get back. I just have to leave right now. Bye!" he rushed towards the door.
"Yamcha, wait!"
He stopped in the doorway to pass an exasperated glare at her. "What is it now, Puar?"
The cat put a paw over her mouth to smother a giggle. "Aren't you forgetting something?" she glanced down at his legs before looking back up at his face.
"What?" he followed Puar's gaze to see his bare legs and *very* brightly coloured boxers, each grinning yellow happy-face staring back at him. He blushed.
"I thought it felt a little drafty."
"Got any fours?"
"Go fish," Chaozu smiled.
"Darn it!" Goku grumbled as he leaned over and picked a card from the deck. Upon receiving another non-match, he stuffed the offending card in his hand grumbling out, "I never win at this game!"
"You can't be good at everything, Goku," Chaozu lectured sagely. He turned to his left. "Hey, Tien, got any sixes?"
"Man, this hurts like a mother f—"
"Tien!"
The triclops blinked from beneath his new ice pack to his friend. "What?"
Chaozu cleared his throat. "Do you have any sixes?"
"Yeah, hold on," Tien grumbled as he set down the ice and picked up his cards, flicking a six of hearts to the diminutive fighter. Chaozu caught it easily.
"Thanks, Tien," he put the pair in his ever-increasing stack with his chubby, white hand. "Do you have any twos?"
"Go fish."
The smile never leaving his face, Chaozu picked up a two of clubs from the pile and was about to set the cards down in his little accumulation of pairs when . . .
"Hiya, Yamcha!" Goku called out cheerily, despite the fact that he had yet to secure a match in their little card game.
Yamcha closed the door on his aircar, squinting his eyes from the dust and the afternoon sunlight so scrutinize the area around him. *I knew Chichi was up to something! She must have bought this stadium and started repairing it. Oh man . . . I hope they didn't notice that *I* was the one who broke that door down . . .*
"What brings you here?" Goku asked congenially.
"I actually came here to talk to Chichi, if you don't mind, that is . . ."
"I don't mind," the petite brunette said as she walked over to where all the fighters were standing, taking a reprieve from playing slavemaster . . . er . . . contractor. She smirked evilly. "Did you have a nice sleep, Yamcha?"
"Yeah, thanks to those knock-out drops you gave me!" he growled.
Chichi blinked her big black eyes in an attempt to look innocent with a straight face. "But Yamcha, how else was I going to find out where the stadium was?"
"I guess you could've asked Bulma," Chaozu said helpfully.
Yamcha's ears perked up at the sound of Bulma's name.
"Bulma? But I haven't seen her since the tryouts," Chichi said crossing her arms. "I tried calling her at home, but I guess she wasn't there because I got her answering machine."
"You haven't seen Bulma since the tryouts?" Yamcha asked, worried. "But . . . but what if she's still in the—"
A loud crash came from the inside of the stadium as an internal wall was demolished. The sound of the workers shouting orders and the monotonous "bleep-bleep" of the heavy machinery took control of the surprised silence from our select group of fighters.
"BULMA!" Yamcha cried out, running towards the stadium, only to be stopped by Goku's quick reflexes and strong arm.
"Now Yamcha," Goku said, smiling even through the panicked look the fighter's eyes, "we've already checked the stadium before we started the reconstruction. No one's in there but those workers."
"But . . ."
Goku sighed exasperatedly. "Yamcha, Bulma is *not* in there. We haven't seen her since she was at the tryouts. Relax. Sit down. Play some cards with us. Chaozu, deal us in."
"Right!" the little doll-faced fighter agreed, scraping up all the cards to shuffle as a full deck.
"Uh, no thanks Goku," Yamcha composed himself enough to decline politely. "I really need to talk with Chichi."
Goku shrugged. "Okay then."
"But now we have to start the game over," Chaozu stopped in mid-shuffle.
"Oh well. Maybe I'll have a better game this time around," Goku put his hand behind his head and laughed.
Chaozu hmphed. "You're just a sore loser, Coach."
"I am not!" Goku pouted childishly.
Chichi simply smiled at the sheer immaturity of her husband. He never really was good at cards. Walking beside Yamcha until they were out of earshot from the game she turned to him and asked, "So what did you want to talk to me about?"
Yamcha blushed and looked down at his feet. "Well, it's . . . it's a-about . . . uh . . . Bulma."
"What about her?"
"Well, you see . . . uh . . ." he stammered.
"Oh, out with it already," the small brunette demanded, impatient by this stuttering when she had better things to do, namely whipping some of those lazy construction workers back in line.
"WeusedtodateeachotherandnowIdon'tthinksheevenknowsIexistandIneedhelp," he rushed out.
Chichi translated. "So . . . you used to date each other and now you don't think she knows you exist. Do you still like her, or do you just want her back because you find her familiar?"
"Chichi, I'm in love with this woman!" Yamcha chose as his answer. "She's my night and my day! When she walks in the room, everything's in slow- motion and I feel—"
"Okay, okay. So you're in love with her. Why don't you tell her that?"
"Well first of all, I haven't been able to get a hold of her since the night of the tryouts," Yamcha began ticking off items on his fingers. "Second, I don't know exactly what to say to her because third of all, she might have changed over the past five years."
"Are you sure that you didn't change?" Chichi asked.
"Well, no. I don't think I did, but it's pretty hard to gauge if you've changed or not. To yourself, you're always just the same as you were a few seconds ago."
*Not all the time,* Chichi thought, remembering back to the sudden change she had undergone when she had given birth to Gohan. The once timid, fragile girl had, within the space of time that she had heard those first few gasping cries that signified the creation of a new life, become a strong, protective mother, and, in all the word's definitive entirety, a woman. She distinctly remembered that change. "Well then," she blinked back that beautiful memory, "why don't you just tell her how you feel anyway. It sure would take a lot of the pressure off you. And we certainly don't need pressure on you before the grand opening, now do we?"
"But how do I tell her?" Yamcha sat down on a conveniently located piece of debris from the stadium's reconstruction. He ran his hands through his cropped hair in a frustrated manner.
"Well," Chichi surmised, "since you don't seem to want personal contact, why don't you try with a note and schedule to meet her somewhere?"
"But where would I leave the note? We haven't been able to find her, remember?"
"You did say that you saw her come into this stadium, didn't you?" Chichi answered his question with a question.
"Yeah, but . . ."
"Then why don't you just leave the note where you last saw her? I'm sure she'll find it."
Yamcha blinked articulately before coming up with another complaint about her suggestion. "But how do we know that she'll come back here? The Tournament Ghost—"
"—is just a legend. I am absolutely positive that *that* particular load of crap doesn't exist," Chichi said haughtily, her nose slightly lifting into the air.
"What makes you so sure?" he asked skeptically.
She winked at him, holding a familiar piece of paper in her hand. "Because ghost's can't use pens. Now go on and get that girl already. I've got other things to do besides give romance advice."
*That seems like a pretty sketchy answer to what's been going on, but then again, so is believing in a ghost,* Yamcha supposed. Perhaps Chichi was right. Perhaps he was just hallucinating because of some bad food. Perhaps Bulma would come back and see his note. Perhaps everything was as it should be.
"Goku! Stop trying to look at my cards!"
"I'm not cheating, I swear!"
"Great, just great. Now I've got paper-cuts on my fingers from these cards."
Oh yes, everything was just fine.
Chichi smiled as she walked over to her husband. "Goku, just face it. You're not good at cards and you never will be. Now come on, we've got work to do."
Tien snorted, still dabbing his ice pack on his wounded eye. "Like figure out a way to catch Krillin red-handed?"
Yamcha blinked, confused. "Krillin? What did he do?"
Chichi crossed her arms, closing her eyes and scowling a bit. "Oh nothing much really. He only tried to sabotage all that I've worked for by putting himself in league with Kame Team because of that blonde-haired hussy Eighteen."
"What?" Yamcha said with a shocked expression on his face.
Chichi took a deep, I'm-going-to-start-my-ranting-now breath as the rest of the fighters prepared to cover their ears for her own scathing explanation of her solution for the Krillin problem.
"You just had to get her started, didn't you?" Chaozu accused Tien.
Sabotage, betrayal, unrequited romance, mystery, and a bit of supernatural on the side. Ah yes, everything was just fine.
Something was wrong with this whole picture, Piccolo had concluded. He was never one to believe in the paranormal, but the incidents associated with the old stadium that Goku's harpy wife had insisted on purchasing were just too unreal and too coincidental. Someone, or some*thing* was behind all of this, and Piccolo was going to find out exactly what was going on around here.
"Never thought I'd see the day when I came to *his* door asking for help," he muttered as he grasped the gilded doorknocker in his green hand, rapping it in a steady rhythm "That old coot better be home . . ." he grumbled.
No sooner had his words trailed off the door opened briskly, allowing him to see the dark face of Mr. Popo. The little genie tilted his head in recognition. "Ah, Piccolo," he greeted sociably, "it's very nice to see you, sir. Please come inside. It's getting awfully chilly out about now," he glanced to the nearly set sun on the horizon.
Piccolo refused to say anything as he stepped through the door, Popo closing it behind him. His emerald face stoically gazed forward as he took in the plain, yet lavish surroundings of the house of one of the most prestigious tournament judges in history. Though the house was an opulent size, the ornamentation consisted solely of white marble and a few gold trimmings for variation of the cold white. The polished columns and smooth white floor glistened in the scant moonlight that passed through the embellished windows, giving the room the feeling of a museum after closing time. After a while, Mr. Popo coughed, the sound echoing in the cavernous room and calling attention to himself before speaking.
"Have you come here to see Kami?" the plump servant inquired politely.
Piccolo merely focused a glance in Popo's direction, barely able to distinguish the dark man's form from the shadows of the house's interior. Popo cleared his throat again and took that as a yes.
"Well then, right this way," he ascended a great staircase to the upper level of the house, Piccolo falling in behind him. Reaching the top, Popo led the tall Namek to a door at the end of the hall, the light filtering between the cracks indicating that it was occupied. Piccolo wasted no more time in formalities and opened the door roughly before Mr. Popo could get a word in edgewise.
"All right, Old Man. I want some answers. Now."
In the weak lamplight, one could barely make out the wrinkled, aged features of another Namekian, his scrutinous black eyes lifting off a paper he was reviewing to greet this newcomer. His desk sprouted a forest of deeds, documents, and other miscellaneous forms, each neatly placed into towering stacks that loomed over the elderly green man. Kami smiled wryly.
"So, Piccolo. I see you've finally decided to visit me. And willingly at that."
Piccolo growled. "You know I'd never visit you unless I needed something. I want information."
Kami's smile broadened as he set down the paper that he was reading previously. "Well, I see your manners haven't changed."
"I didn't come her to discuss my manners, you old bag!" Piccolo slammed his fist on the desk, causing the ice in Kami's glass of water to clink and two stacks of paper to fall to the floor. "I came to figure out what's going on!"
"Going on where?" Kami questioned nonchalantly, resuming his reading of the paper before him.
"At the old stadium on First Street," Piccolo ground out, irritated at his elder's passiveness.
"What about it?" Kami ceased his reading and straightened out one of the disheveled stacks.
"What do you mean 'what about it?'" the younger Namek bellowed. "Six years and three months ago two bodies were found at ringside in that stadium, shortly after their primary promoter was killed under 'unknown circumstances.' The stadium was abandoned from then on, but four years ago there were complaints of flashing lights and screaming coming from it. Just this week someone's claimed to have seen a woman abducted there. The rumours say that it's some sort of ghost. I. Want. To. Know. What's. Going. On."
Kami merely kept reorganizing his desk from Piccolo's assault prior. He diligently opened his drawer, placing his many pens within it, then closing it with an audible 'click' before moving on to sorting his papers. After about a minute of waiting, he finally had his desk arranged to his satisfaction and glanced up with a look that read something along the lines of: 'Oh, you're still here? Silly me.'
Kami smirk returned. "I'm surprised you haven't figured it out on your own by now."
"And just what do you mean by that?!" Piccolo swiped his arm across the desk, effectively ruining Kami's past efforts of cleanliness. Popo scurried to the other side of the desk to try to repair the damage.
"You really don't remember, do you Piccolo?"
"Don't remember what?!" Piccolo demanded.
Kami let out a low chuckle before beginning his story, then suddenly turned serious.
"You were there. About seven years ago a man named Frieza blazed a path of destruction that encompassed most of the planet. Not one person could escape his mighty arm, and they either fell dead to him, were kept as prisoners, or reluctantly bowed to him. Have I sparked your memory yet, Piccolo?"
Piccolo kept a stony expression. "Go on."
"Of course," Kami nodded his head. "We were two of those that were kept as prisoners after Frieza had burned our village to the ground and slaughtered most of the inhabitants. Do you remember that too, Piccolo?"
Piccolo said nothing, and Kami took it as an affirmative to continue.
"And I'll bet you also recall exactly how those dungeons looked, felt, and smelled, don't you? Well, do you remember then, Piccolo, what you did? You broke us out of our chains and led an escape, though only four of us were left alive to attempt it. You remember that, don't you?"
"Of course I remember that, Old Man. I just don't se the correlation between that little incident and the situation at the old stadium," Piccolo said in a strangely subdued way.
"The correlation is, Piccolo," Kami frowned, "that while you made our escape attempt, you diverted Frieza's attention from one of his subjects. Now don't tell me you can't see the correlation between that and the stadium."
Slowly, as though sorting through memories, Piccolo's eyes widened in recognition and he gradually removed his hand from the desk and backed away. "You mean that I . . ."
Kami solemnly shook his head in a concurring manner. "Yes."
"And that man we saw . . ."
"Yes."
There was silence for a moment before Piccolo's eyes suddenly went from shocked to resolute and he turned around with a, "Thanks for the information, Old Man. Don't expect me back any time soon."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Kami slipped back into his cordial manner.
Piccolo made it about ten steps before he glanced sidelong at the senior Namek and asked almost too softly to be heard, "How is the Namek Restoration Project going?"
"It's going quite well, actually. We should have most them in homes by the end of this year."
Piccolo nodded and stepped past the doorway without another word, his white cape swishing behind him and an expression on his face that looked as though he could care less about what he had been told, signifying the end of his part of the conversation. The sound of his pointed brown shoes brushing softly across the marble floor finally disappeared as Mr. Popo finished reorganizing the papers on Kami's desk, the brown genie looking in his master's direction when he heard the older Namekian address no one in particular.
"Funny thing is, most of the funding seems to be coming from a certain martial arts trainer," the wise old Namek smiled. "I think there's hope for you yet, Piccolo. There's hope for you yet."
And Popo was left to figure out what that meant on his own.
Bulma wiped her brow, the coolness in the air contrasting uncomfortably with the heat her body emitted from her long night of training. Exhaustedly, she stepped down from the small replica of the tournament arena, its white tiles shining in the faint fluorescent lighting of the training room. She padded to the white sink, her sneakers accidentally stepping in a puddle from the leaking pipe because of the dimmed lighting. Muttering something about careless reconstruction workers, she turned on the sink and splashed herself with the cool water to clear the salty sweat from her face. Wiping her face on the towel provided, she stepped lightly to her bag, pulling out a change of clothes and vanishing behind the large folding screen. Her clothes changed, her lessons over, and her body exhausted, she sat on the edge of the miniature fighting ring, her bag at her side and her head in her hand.
Not for the first time in the past few months, Bulma wondered how she had gotten where she was. It seemed like only yesterday that she stepped into the old stadium for no reason she could fathom and heard the voice of the ghost or angel or whatever that she had affectionately, in a loose sense, dubbed as 'Grumpy.' Everything was so different from the way things were five years ago, it became difficult to even remember that time. From what Bulma could piece together, those times were full of laughter, happiness, long walks on the beach, trips to the park, and kissing on the front porch.
They were also monotonous and boring. Though she had not felt so at the time, she could tell now that if she went back to that, it would never feel the same. Ever since that day she had walked into the stadium that dark night, the chance to train for the tournaments gave her a feeling of excitement, adrenaline, and . . . something that she could not quite place. Now she had something to look forward to, and she had no idea what the result would be.
And she liked that.
That was not to say that she had second thoughts about this training. As much as she was learning and as skilled as she had become, she could not help the feeling that her 'trainer' was always hiding something. It was one thing to say that you were dead. It was quite another to claim to be a homicidal spectre. Bulma had come to the conclusion that this man was either covering something, or was very much insane. But as long as Bulma kept improving in her martial arts, she decided to overlook that. Though, that did not mean it was far from her mind every time she spoke with 'Grumpy.'
'Grumpy' confused her to no end. One minute he was as closed off as a dead end street, the next she could almost swear that he was cracking a smile. He laughed, he joked, and he was even almost *nice* on occasion, albeit those three actions came rarely unless it was at her expense. If all ghosts were like this, Bulma was pretty sure she would not mind meeting them.
And that was another thing on Bulma's mind. Though she had spoken with the ghost, trained with him, and even laughed with him on those rare occasions he was in an amiable mood, she had never actually met him face to face. Sure, she had come to know his moods, expressions, and all around character through the mere inflection of his rough voice, but there was just something special about your first actual meeting. And the fact that she had never spoken to Grumpy in person aggravated her. He seemed to find amusement in playing with her mind indirectly, so she would be at a disadvantage countering.
Well, that was something she would just have to change.
"Contemplating the universe, are we Woman?"
Bulma snapped up from her speculations and smiled. "Well you know us geniuses. Always analyzing something."
"Hn. You should give it a rest and go home. You've had a long day."
Bulma laughed a little. "Why Grumpy, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were actually concerned for me!"
"Hardly," the room snorted disdainfully. "I just don't want to have to train a dead sack of crap tomorrow night."
"Oh of course," Bulma said sarcastically. She took her mentor's hint and picked up her bag, heading out the door, rolling her eyes along the way. "Try not to kill any construction workers tomorrow. I know they're annoying, but they're only doing their job, Grumpy."
Grumpy hmphed. "They should do their job somewhere else. These rooms are in perfect condition."
"Fine, whatever," Bulma surrendered to his stubbornness. "Just no casualties, okay?"
"Agreed."
"Stubborn, stuck-up jerk," she muttered as she passed through the doorway.
"Moronic, melodramatic woman," Grumpy countered.
He got a slammed door in response.
Bulma did not know whether to laugh or fume. They always departed the same way. She would insult him, he would insult her, and she'd slam the door on him. That was pretty much the only predictable event in her day. The same types of insults, the same sound of the slamming door, the same reverberation in the hallway, the same note fluttering to the floor . . . wait a minute . . .
Bulma stooped and picked up the falling scrap of paper, noting the piece of tape that had been used to attach it to the door, but had proved ineffectual to her slamming it. She examined the handwriting on quickly scribbled 'Bulma' written on the front, though she could not exactly place where she had seen it before. Seeing no other writing on that side, she turned it over, reading softly to herself.
*"Nothing has changed. I've kept my promise and come back to you. Meet me here tomorrow night. I haven't forgotten you."*
. . . and the plot thickens . . .
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yay! I'm alive! And I wrote an extra long chapter! Woohoo! Okay . . . PLEASE REVIEW MY STORY! One of the reasons why this took so long is because of the LACK OF SUPPORT from SOME PEOPLE. *coughcough, Jason, coughcough* Well, I'm sorry for the whole 'contemplativeness' of this chapter, but it's necessary. There are MANY things going on here, and people have to pay attention to all the stuff in the background to understand future chapters. So, if you just skimmed over it, go and read it again, because a lot of stuff is major foreshadowing. Anywho, all of you must read 'ROMANCE IDIOTS WITH HIGH KI' by ZippyDragon*43 in case you didn't get my liminal and subliminal messages. I hope to hear from you all in YOUR REVIEWS. Love you all (but I love you more WHEN YOU REVIEW)!
~Chunks
Oh and by the way, does anyone know what those folding changing screens are called? I'm tired of repeating the whole 'folding screen' and 'changing screen' and just the word 'screen' in general.
^_^ Have a nice day AFTER YOU REVIEW. Sorry. Some people are really dense.
REVIEW!
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I'm going for 20, okay? Give me twenty or I'll post an author's note on why I need reviews. I'm warning you! I'll do it too! Don't think I won't do it!
