Tamshii no Unmei
by Sageseeker777
Chapter Three
He lurks in here.
-Loner, TMMB
"Only power matters, everything else is a delusion for the weak!"
-Vegeta
winter solitude-
in a world of one color
the sound of wind
-Basho
Winter was in full swing before the end of November. December passed unnoticed under the nose of Satan City's populace. The school closed on the nineteenth after the end of the science fair, and Gohan spent Christmas vacation at his mother's home. That was how he was coming to think of it, that his home was in the city and his family's was in the mountains. His cozy little apartment was becoming very personal to him, moreso than his room at home had ever been.
Videl spent the vacation in her father's mansion like always, where she put up a small Christmas tree in her room, by herself. It was nice enough, but Christmas left her feeling sadder than usual because there was just something... missing. She realized that there was nobody she could say 'merry Christmas' to, or to hug and open gifts with. There were going to be lots of gifts, of course, just that they would be a week late because her father would realize that he had a daughter somewhere near midnight tonight. And it wasn't just that. There was an empty spot inside of her that her father could never have filled, that her mother couldn't have changed. Something just wasn't there.
Gohan stared up at the stars on Christmas night, about the time Videl cried herself to sleep for the first time in a while, and made a wish. "I wish I may, I wish I might, first star I see tonight, have the wish I wish tonight..."
I know that she's waiting for me. I wish I could just find her...
-*-
A world of pristine, unbroken white. Looking out from the balcony under the snow-covered overhang, Gohan enjoyed the sight of a city untouched. It was six A.M. on the second day of the year, and he was glad to finally wake in his own bed. Home just wasn't 'home' anymore.
For the first time in a month or so, Gohan thought about what was brewing on the darker side of the city. Powers were increasing, he could sense, and something horrible was probably in the works.
Today, he decided. Gohan was going to find the source of this power. But he knew that it would be easily stopped, so he was going to watch. Watch every move they make and try to find out the reasoning behind this mess. Nothing could be as so simplistic as to boil down to greed or wanton destruction, could it? And stopping the plot behind the plot was probably more important.
And why not? But with an operation as big as this seemed to be, how could the whole point just be to destroy or kill? It wasn't worth the brain wracking thought required, and that was why Gohan was going to be watching.
He went inside to get dressed.
It was cold. Not cold enough to make a Saiyan shiver madly and clutch his jacket tightly to himself, but one must remember that Gohan was only half-Saiyan. And the only jacket he owned was a windbreaker.
That wasn't something to worry over. In front of him was a building emanating the strongest of the dark powers. It wasn't really the power itself that was dark, just that there was an air of malice about it. It wasn't... right. Un-right in the same way as those pale-skinned, pain-ignorant man-creatures. They weren't human, because their lives were given up to this Babidi thing.
And now they were increasing their power in the same manner as before, except more visibly. Rather than being given a limitless well of energy to draw from, they were taking the energy for their own, permanently, which probably increased the invisible power they could draw on.
The building, an abandoned warehouse, wasn't well guarded at all. They probably never expected anyone who was actually searching for them to find them. Any of the ignorant personages of the city would be stopped by the foot-thick steel door. Gohan had sensed their power, and figured that they probably didn't know about that ability if they didn't try to defend against it. That meant that they couldn't sense him. Except that Gohan didn't know if this was just a school where they might learn some of those techniques he had appreciated for all these years.
Before coming here, Gohan had checked on other places that seemed the same, never finding more than a single gang or tiny group of ragged beggars. None were worth any trouble. And none were in on any part of Babidi's operation that was this big.
From the rooftop Gohan peered in on a training floor of about a hundred people. They were doing something like Tai Chi or a complex kata in perfect synch with each other. They were training to work as a team. Something big was going down. And they were all wearing the same thing, a black jumpsuit. Every single person in sight had an 'M' on their foreheads. This was the place.
Gohan stayed for a few more hours, having to change position a lot near the end because of the strange way he was perched; he was leaning over a box of steel jutting up from the roof. It was covered by a single pane of glass. He found that the miniature army actually consisted of about five hundred, each in a different section practicing different things at different times. No plans were gone over where he could see; it was all training.
Gohan wished he had a watch. He would have to buy one of those cheap twelve-dollar ones soon if he wanted to do this kind of active surveillance on someone. And sooner rather than later, he had to get into this building and set up a way to hear things, or observe them better. Maybe one of those web cameras that could broadcast to your home. Where would you get one? An electronics store? Before he went and got one he would have to find a way in. That could wait until tomorrow. He only had until the fifth before he had to return to school.
This was getting ridiculous.
Gohan had been coming to the warehouse every day after school for a week now, and every single moment was the same every day. His watch proved it. At two fifty-nine, group '1' was always on the big blue mat in the center that he had observed on the first day. group '2' was always sparring in the upper left quad of the building. That was all he could generally see. At three-thirty, group '3' was on the mat, while group '2' continued to do the same monotonous spars that would have amazed the average joe, but were really just simple and repetitive. The shifts were 'staggered', at least Gohan was assuming. It might just be that they had a confusing schedule.
There had to be some variation! There had to be a speck of normality, hadn't there? Or else they would just burn out from too much training, right? Socialization, or a learning session, or something had to be going on in other parts the building. They had to bond in tight groups, not just as unified mobs.
Unless that was the point... Take away humanity, and just let them wave over cities without care for a single person.
Gohan had tried to get in at all hours of the day. There was always active training going on. And he would bet that it was exactly that way every day and night after every day and night. He had searched the building as best he could without being spotted. The only way in or out appeared to be through the rooftop window or the big main door. They might have had an underground entrance, but the only access would be the sewer, and that wasn't assured. It might be part of a separate tunnel system like the big room where Babidi had spoken.
The roof window was a fairly big piece of glass, but unless he could take the entire glass out, he couldn't get in unseen. And even that plan would be extremely visible to anyone inside since there was always a group on the big mat. Five groups must give them enough time to cycle for rest plus all of the other 'stations'.
Today, Gohan went home early. He hadn't had enough time during the rest of his vacation to do much of anything, and hated how long this was taking. There had to be some way to do this.
Uncharacteristically, he turned on the television. It was some daytime drama. He sat down to watch. There was a cliche pizza delivery boy slash super-hero who waltzed up to the 'bad guys' secret hideout' and knocked. Wrong address?
No way. Nonono, bad Gohan! That's an incredibly stupid idea. So stupid, in fact, that he could try it. He couldn't just break his way in, and once that door was open, he was certain he was fast enough to get in unseen. Maybe. This was a horrible plan. This just wasn't good.
And how would he get out? How about the same way he had gotten in? They couldn't see him, not once, else they might move the entire operation. Or sweep the place for what he would leave behind. This required some decently quick thinking. Gohan was good at that. He could do this. He could. Yeah, just keep telling yourself that...
This was stupid. No sense at all, a genius like him should be able to come up with a more ingenuitive plan. Like join their cult. Wait, they have those 'M' tattoos. Get a tattoo to save a lot of people? No, of course not. People's lives weren't equal to the worth of his soft, supple skin.
So funny tonight. He should go pro. This... it wasn't going to work. It couldn't- No. Stop. If you don't think it'll work, then it won't. Let's just ignore that surge of adrenaline. He could move perfectly fine without it. He could run fast. Straight into the hands of bloody friggin' life-sucking cultists. Cultist? Is that even a word? This is bad; thinking is hard when you know that your first mistake could jeopardize the future. If he screwed up then it would only get ten times harder to find out what he needed to know.
Clothes. Check. Honestly, funnier than a barrel of monkeys. Wait, that's not funny. A barrel of something, then. Gohan was wearing the purple uniform of the great Piccolo. Grrrreat. Like Tony the tiger on that commercial after that stupid show. Why did I turn on that damn television? Why?
The pizza. It wasn't really necessary, but they might wonder why the hell someone had knocked. He was going to drop it and fly through the door. He needed to be super-Saiyan, in order to move that fast. What if they didn't open it? What if they looked at him before they opened it? What if they suspected something because the pizza guy wasn't there? That was why he had a note. 'Sorry your pizza was late, it's free, got to go to another place I'm almost late for'.
There were too many things that could go wrong. He didn't need to do this tonight. No, he didn't.
It was too late; he was at the door. A good thing they didn't keep surveillance on their doors or there would be no stupid plan at all.
Wait a minute. There was something different. That wasn't good in a place as monotonous as this. There was a power inside there that was higher than any other he could sense within, and this was pure power, not just something leached off of a dark wellspring.
There was yelling. Yelling that could be heard almost distinctly through a foot-thick steel door and probably some soundproofing if the glass up top was any example. Speaking of sound, he had an audio bug he'd built by himself. Those webcams were expensive! At least by his standards. And any large withdrawal would prompt questions from his mother who received an account report every month. She probably went over it with a fine-tooth comb.
It would take accuracy. Within fifty feet he could keep the sound in directional mode, so that only a single area is scanned. But that yelling was getting louder. An interruption, perhaps?
Knock, said the door. Silence reigned within. Gohan laid the pizza on the ground with the note clearly visible and stepped up to the door with barely a fraction of an inch between flesh and cold steel.
Here it comes, they're going to ask something or open something to look or turn on some cameras and light that I missed because they were hidden or-
The door opened. He moved fast. Very very fast. To the right, and down, there was a low ceiling and there was a dark spot, in a tenth of a second. It must have been forty feet. One hundred eighty miles per hour. The flying adolescent is quicker than the eye.
Gohan took everything in at once. The place was a huge rectangle, four stories high by about a thousand feet long on two ends. The shorter sides weren't too much less than the long, he guessed that they were seven hundred feet or so.
He was floating with his head just beneath what could be dormitories, positioned fifteen feet in the air by supports that circled two sides. The adjoining side was definitely not dormitories because it was being used by one of the groups in training who were doing energy attacks.
Light covered the mat and two sides, while the outside of the mat was impenetrable darkness, except above the ramps where floodlight lit everything. What had been blocking Gohan's view, so that he could only see the one corner in which normal sparring was actively going on, had been an extension of the rooms above him, probably a communications center.
In the third corner, where there was no normal sparring, no Gohan, no energy attacking, and no ramp because it ended, was some air spars. But that wasn't strictly speaking. They seemed to only be learning how to use energy in jumps.
Therefore they couldn't fly. One of his assumptions already, and thankfully, proven wrong. Which would go next? Maybe the communication thing was a nuclear weapons command console. Cue canned laughter. Ha ha ha.
Gohan blinked. His eyes felt like they had been open too long and it only took a moment to realize that the source of the yelling had stopped yelling and was looking around. The only person it could have been was the blue leviathan that seemed to be the same one from Babidi's message, except... bigger. The camera was supposed to add ten pounds, not subtract, right? He must be Babidi's right hand guy, Gohan reasoned.
Did he sense Gohan's energy? It had only been a second or two since Gohan's entrance, and it was only dumb luck that he had been preoccupied when Gohan had gone super-Saiyan, but in that amount of time he might pinpoint a power as great as Gohan's.
So don't panic, turn off the lights. His hair went black and his eyes darkened from glowing sea-blue to a deep and clear onyx. The giant shook his head and began to command the exercises again. Instead of the synch techniques they were faux-fighting. Moving slow enough that there was no force on impact. Just push. The partner reacted in slow, too. Gohan watched the man yell some last thing. His voice carried like a cow in a tornado. "And after what he did," gesturing at a pile of dust, "you should have stopped him. It is good that you are replaceable."
Gohan felt a chill as he watched the child who was being yelled at bow his head, and then the blue monster called on Babidi. 'Dust to dust...'
If only Gohan hadn't left early today, he might have caught the arrival of this guy and convinced himself not to go through with any sort of fool-worthy plan. If only.
Gohan watched what was happening throughout the building. The energy attack training was particularly interesting as they were launching attacks at their highest level of power into what seemed to be an oversized padded partition. And it absorbed the energy. None of the other stuff was interesting because the jumpers were identical to the sparring he had constantly watched, except airborne. And the new techniques on the mat were just a moment's excitement because it was such a change from routine. At least from here he could see a bit of socialization from today's teachers on the energy floor. Four platforms rose from the ground and all five hundred men were practicing at once.
Gohan realized that he had tried to dehumanize these people himself. Really, they were just the most apt of the brainwashed children taken off of the streets. Children. Exactly like him. Changed and hurt children, but still.
No. In the reality he had and continued to face, their souls were not their own anymore.
Shaking off his sudden moral dilemma, he swore when he realized that the only place that had a chance of being what he sought was what he couldn't see: that which was above him. The fifth group must have been sleeping or something. He needed to see!
Actually, it would be group number three. The group above him. Gohan had memorized some key faces in each group, and number three was missing.
What could he do? He would have to follow the darkness down the side of the building in order to get a better view.
This he did. And he saw the dorms were closed off from the main room except through a single door and what could have been an observation window on the first level. Most likely was, because from that point you could see everything in the building.
There would be no way- wait! That was it! The shifts were staggered, so that there might be ten minutes during which no one was in there at all. Even if it seemed as though every station was taken, they might have some other function during those ten minutes. And if the door took a few seconds to close... He could make his escape through the wall if need be, since this was the last place he had to visit. Maybe cut the wall at an angle beneath whatever coverings there were, so that even if he couldn't replace it very well, it wouldn't be noticed.
But he could do it. It might take all night, but he could. Confidence was slowly leaking into this God-forsaken plan of his. What plan? There was enough last minute improvisation, or what felt like it.
The door was opening. That hadn't taken very long at all. Gohan looked around quickly and noticed, before he ran up to the dorms and took the shortest flight he could, that the blue dude had stopped his training and was walking away from the mat.
Door was sliding shut too fast, this wouldn't work, it was probably made of metal or something, c'mon! This had to work! After everything up to this point, all it took to convince himself, his unfactored opposition, and especially his grand entrance!
In.
The first thing he noticed was how drab it was. The second thing he noticed was that there were voices up the stairs right in front of him. He should have counted all hundred of them, he quietly scolded himself.
Gohan floated up near the ceiling, but once the voices didn't seem to be coming any closer, he peered up around the wall opposite the stairs. The second floor seemed to have a screen embedded in the wall, much like a desk, except that it was droning something over and over. Maps, diagrams, pictures, it was the entire city! They were memorizing the city in their sleep! And then he heard, "Babidi's will be done, gather the light of every being and together we shall call forth the greatest power in the universe for ourselves."
This was the spot, he thought. But then he realized something. There was only one bed on the lowest floor, and he was guessing twenty-five on every level above that. So that was the big blue's bed? It was certainly big enough. It couldn't be a squad leader's because there were no special privileges or classes of rank that he had observed. They took turns teaching, probably because teaching is the best way to learn.
So, this was where he alone lived. And look at that table over there, what might that be? A letter? Yes, it is. And it is still unopened.
Gohan felt something strange for a second. Looking around, he realized that if he went for the letter he'd be in full view of that circular observation window, and of the mammoth creature backing towards him while still looking out at his troops.
In a desperate move, Gohan went super-Saiyan, grabbed the letter, and then powered down in the space of a second. That was the second time that blue-boy out there could have sensed him, and he might not ignore that. Except that if he hadn't noticed outside, maybe he wasn't so adept at it as Gohan and the other Earth-protectors. Gohan shoved the letter beneath his shirt as he thought.
He remembered Vegeta telling him that it was hazy for a while, that he could sense things and people, but compared to today it was like hearing voices in a pea soup fog.
Maybe not in those exact words, but... The guy was at the door! Gohan ran up to the highest level to escape, but realized that he hadn't set the bug. He needed to. Badly. So he crept down the stairs and floated to the corner of the wall opposite the first landing. He could hear breathing. Heavy breathing. The hairs on his neck rose. Any second now, any second, any second, it was all over, it had all been for nothing, incredibly stupid, he had to do this in complete anonymity.
It was set. It was in the corner of the opening that led down the stairs. Gohan returned to the top level by flying, but then remembered that it would flare his ki. He was silently praying that the blue thing wasn't paying any attention.
Gohan used his ki like a laser beam from the tip of a finger. He made an outward-angled incision in the steel ceiling, and lifted it up slowly. It was like the top of a pumpkin on Holloween.
Once he was out, he tried melting the metal in a bit, but heard pounding feet and a roar that shook the ceiling he was standing on. Eyes wide, blood rushing in his ears, he took off.
When he realized what he had learned, he glanced at his watch. It was twelve thirty in the black sky. There would be no one in the dorms at twelve twenty-five every single night, if the last week or so was any indication. He had a way back in. Just in case. Gohan was hoping that he wouldn't need it.
At home, Gohan threw his clothes off, put on a robe, and fell into his bed already asleep. By pure fault of coincidence, the letter fell into the space between his bookshelf and the wall, not to be discovered for almost two years.
-*-
It was lucky that Gohan had left when he did, because in his last minute of infiltration he was being stalked by one of the greatest hunters of the Liu'an. As Gohan replaced the ceiling and did a tiny bit of metal-working, a large blue beast who had stripped to an organic loincloth charged the room and leaped for the center where he had heard the footstep a moment before.
With a crash he fell to his face. His senses must be getting faulty. This wasn't good. Babidi couldn't learn that he was becoming unreliable. So, he had to make himself reliable. When the time came, no one would dare usurp Babidi because of Arush, the right hand of this universe's most powerful sorcerer.
-*-
Videl was slipping.
It had begun with Christmas night and only got worse. She hadn't done anything except school in weeks. No training, no reading, no television, no music, just... Sleep. She decided to pass all that empty, lonely time by ignoring its existence. So she was taking long afternoon naps.
Wasn't that a sign of depression? Videl had escaped her escapes. What could she do now? It had been three weeks since they had returned to schooling, and everything was just dark. Nothing was nice anymore. She tried to be happy, but tears always welled up in her eyes unbidden. There was no reason behind them, but she just cried silently, letting the salty droplets roll down her cheek in a vain attempt to wash away the shore of memory.
It was like a slope. Every day she would get lower and lower.
Except that she hit a point where it stopped. She didn't get worse, but she didn't get better either.
And now she just wanted to run away. That might be a solution, go out to where her power, her strength, where she herself had once had a use- on the streets. Maybe they would have reset their operations by now. She desperately needed to kick someone's butt. To feel needed.
She sighed. Haunted by sighs. Weren't they symbols of regret? What could she regret, but her lost self?
Lost. She wanted to be truly lost, without a thought to plague her. So she went to sleep.
Hours later, Videl woke in a sweat. Someone had called her. The strength that comes from being needed found itself in her chest, above her heart. She flew out of her bed, still dressed, noticing that her clock said eleven.
She grabbed her shoes and practically flew out of the house.
Videl grabbed a train at random. Seeming random. There was something drawing her, pulling her to a destination.
After twenty minutes she was on the edge of the city. The warehouse district itself. She hadn't been here before, and was wondering what she was doing. Ten minutes dragged by as she ambled around. Nothing was happening. There wasn't a single person on any street she had passed, as though they had been warned of what was coming.
Something was coming? Videl broke into a run down the first alley after that thought, and soon was streaking like lightning down street after backstreet. Stop!
With a crash, she hit a wall on the soles of her feet. A second later she slid to the ground in a heap of cardboard conveniently beneath her. Videl froze. Something was coming. She backed into a larger heap of cardboard and covered herself in shadow. It was big.
-*-
Gohan was bent over the bed in such a way that his head touched the carpet while his feet were under the gentle breeze caused by the fan. It's fun, he thought, to have the blood rushing to your head. Fun fun silly willy. Joy. And look at all this time passing. So much time...
He had gotten the motherload with his bug in place. They were starting tonight, and they were going to wave over a section of the city at a time. They would sweep it so that no one escaped, and that was why they had to know the intricate details of every building. No one was going to be left standing. They were stealing life-energy for Babidi. That was the reasoning behind the infliction of pain. Give to your deity. Give. More!
However, just the other day an epiphany had been visited upon Gohan. He realized that he had gone to his mother's house, to fight those energy-thieves, to school, and put every thought into them just so that he wouldn't have to admit the truth to himself.
He was very alone in his dark apartment. He was always alone. No one could touch him on the inside, no one. There might have been someone, but what was that? An imagined feeling. He did everything he could to ignore the cold feeling always filling him. That was the secret answer. That was the lesson he had learned. And he wondered, what was the point of destroying such an evil if all it did was leaving you feeling the same way as before? Why do it if your reasons are so selfish, so that it isn't because you can but because you want something out of it?
Do the means justify the ends? In this case, there might be a unified 'yes' from all fronts. But this wasn't a question of the nameless millions who could fall prey to a life-sucking orange midget, it was of whether or not Gohan wanted to perpetuate his own self-piteous half-life. His life was horrible, by most standards. He was okay with it, but it wouldn't even be considered a healthy lifestyle. No friends, no real familial connections, no life outside school and books. Didn't relate to the world except to read the paper. Didn't go to pep rallies and school sports. Didn't exercise. Ate right, but that was because it was economical.
Maybe... No, he had done that after the Cell Games. Perhaps his subconscious would work against him and get him killed. Who knew? That might be fun. His dad had done it several times already. And came back most of the time.
He just didn't care about his own life. No death wish, not suicidal, just... uncaring. Could he care about the lives of others if that was so? Apparently.
But why should he go out and stop them? He wanted a reason.
A voice whispered in his ear, why did your father die? What did he value?
Is that why I value others' lives? Gohan replied.
No, it is because you trust in him. Do you trust your father and his Truth?
I...
Gohan stood up and sighed. A small smile came to his face.
Argh. He didn't want to wear purple, so he decided to go in some black pants and shirt, with a green overthingy. Needless to say, he was cool. Oh yeah, get that self-esteem up there! Trust your self-image and everything will fall into place. Really. You know, some people at his high school might actually believe that, with all they go through to look 'good'. It was funny sometimes.
He jumped from his balcony and rocketed away. A golden bolt of light, illuminating the steel machinations reaching for the heavens.
It was dark.
It was late, but it was still dark for this time of night. There were no streetlights and no stars. Cloudy. It was going to rain. Maybe.
Gohan walked from the warehouse down the streets Babidi's men were going to take to get to the first checkpoint. It was a back alley, with a dead end, and a sidestreet that was about three-quarters down. A smoky pillar was rising from a broken steam pipe. As Gohan walked down the street the moon came out, illuminating a mountain of cardboard in the mouth of that sidestreet, and the white, rising steam. To his left, opposite the sidestreet, was a building under construction that would probably never be worked on, and hadn't been for months.
A street urchin appeared to be doing something in the cardboard, and might have been scared of the sight of a man, or rather a big-for-his-age fifteen-year-old bathed in golden fire.
Gohan was alert. There were people all around him, especially in that framework building. Blue-boy had his power maxed out and was standing behind him.
For a moment Gohan was worried about that subconscious deathwish. But then he powered up a bit, enough to destroy them all with a few blasts, and lost the feeling.
Easy pickings. Bad to underestimate the enemy, ne? Even when you think you know him...
They all jumped on him at once, and he was pierced by a million swords. Actually, it was just the lamps' needles. They were stealing his energy, and he was getting weaker, and more were stabbing him, he was falling...
If they wanted energy, they would get energy! He blew his power sky high, destroying about half of the lamps and throwing everyone and everything away from him.
He heard a ferocious growl and suddenly couldn't breathe. His neck was being crushed, his body was indenting the wall, he was dying. NO! He was the son of Goku! He was a Saiyan, and the strongest warrior in the entire God-be-damned universe! He was Gohan Son!
A roar, close to one he had screamed out years ago in a timeless room, echoed through the city from his air-filled diaphragm out of his vulnerable throat, past his air-starved lips.
But it was no use. The beast was caged. His energy was being taken through the thing's hand. He should have powered up more. Gohan could hear the shout of his captor, the laughs of the underlings, and his eyes were caught by the darkness hiding in this demon's eyes. They were blue, like his skin, but also black. There was evil there.
Gohan could imagine the light dancing in the same eyes, so clearly, as he watched this malformed, blue-colored murderer's children playing by the fire, having fun, loving. Who his wife could have been, how sweet she was, how much they were in love. Just imagine what might have been. Imagine the light you desire. Just rest. Rest.
Help...
-*-
Smash! Replay: Sma- Sma- SMASH! Add in the sound effects and the theme music.
Awestriking.
Videl appeared, in such a rage that her power seemed to rocket to the stars. Gohan would have felt sorry for the guy if he had been able to watch. You see, that time when Videl had kicked Gohan in the forearms in the room that Babidi had spoken in she had put ki behind the kick subconsciously. In the two months or so since then, her power had reached just the right ups and downs so that in this flying strike, massive power was thrust into the attack. The effect of the physical hit and the energy together threw Videl and Arush through the entire framework building, and through a whole lot of supports. Afterwards, they crashed through a brick wall into the back of a small pub that was already closed. It would have continued for a lot farther, if Arush hadn't suddenly struck Videl back through the frame building.
She grabbed one of supports, bending it, and threw herself to the ground.
Twist, dodge, block, duck, roundhouse! Blocked, turn, jump, dive, dodge, turn, block.
Poetry in motion. Suddenly, something Videl wasn't ready for, the blue creature activated what looked like a light...
Explosion! Videl was thrown through a wall as the percussive eruption of light and sound rang in her ears.
What was that? What was- The golden guy! What had happened to him? This one had a strange ability, and she didn't know what to do about it. So she ran back to the alleyway. At least she had speed on the guy.
They were crowded over him. Stabbing him with lamps. Videl screamed in what she hoped was a fear-inspiring way.
It was. They backed away, and Videl saw that the gold was flickering. She delivered three sweeping kicks to their heads, and cracked the skulls of half against the other half. Then she began to go at one after the other with blazing speed. Who could, tried to turn and run. They started these strange jumping techniques that let them go farther, but the blue beast appeared.
"Cowards! Your use has ceased! Return your energy!" He held out a hand and they fell to dust. Big blue only got stronger from this.
"Now for you, little girl." He smiled darkly. Ecchi.
But his smile disappeared when she rushed him again and delivered a flurry of moves knocking him around. They were doing damage, but not enough! How could she do it? How?!
He powered up another ball of light, and another and another. They were launched in a coalescing wave, until Videl couldn't breathe because of the heat, was blinded by the light. But she stood her ground, even as the ground around her fell away. A block by her forearms seemed to serve as a good enough shield, except that her baggy clothes were ripped in some places by the inferno.
She yelled. It wasn't of rage or of pain, but frustration. Something was there! Just beyond reach! Like when a word is on the tip of your tongue, and you know it and what it means and what it sounds like, but just can't remember...
Though she couldn't remember even a second later how, she powered up a tiny little ball of light in her cupped hands. The she inverted her hands and the ball grew. Then a little more. And then a lot more. With a shout, she pushed it at her enemy.
With a ripping sound as it burned the air itself, the ball of energy broke apart the bugger, and his scream satisfied Videl's ears. She felt sick afterwards as she remembered how it felt to be the one with the power, the winner, the victor, who had brutally murdered her opponent. Yet he was going to kill her, kill many others, right? So, was that justification? Was it really?
Oh no! Where was that guy? She... Videl felt dizzy. She froze, and felt her mind opening. Everything was already there, and perhaps one latent ability had triggered another.
Everything around her was suddenly visible. Not to her eyes, no, to her mind. She could feel everything. There was herself. And a- was that her shadow? No, it was the golden guy! Every living thing filled her mind. There was an old person, whose power was so infinitesimal compared to her own that it wasn't funny. There were people in their homes, so weak. Was she really that strong? This was incredible. And just being able to know... Maybe it had a flaw. How did you turn it off? How did you ignore it? Was it supposed to be this easy? This was giving her a headache, and after that battle she just wanted to sleep.
After a moment, Gohan came into her sight. He was staggering drunkenly away. His hair was flickering, and she could tell that his power wasn't even half of her own. Videl had a clue that it took power to maintain that flaring energy surrounding him. Did he not want her to see his black hair? And she knew for a fact that it was black, so said her locket. Her locket! She noticed that she could feel the same power from the guy as the locket. Was that supposed to happen? Did hair carry energy? That didn't make sense.
Videl ran up to him. "What's wrong? Your energy, it's... low. How do you control this sense? It's overwhelming. I think I might pass out from the headache it's giving me." She slipped one of his arms around her shoulder and supported his entire weight. He wasn't especially talkative. Probably because of the fact that half of his life force had just been stolen. Did this stuff regenerate with sleep? That was something that made more sense than hair energy.
"N-no..." he whispered.
"No, what? You don't want my help? You're weak. I can help. Let me help you." I want to be your friend. I want to know you. We are so alike. We feel so alike, our energy. I feel as though I've known you forever and I haven't heard ten words out of your mouth since I met you. I met you long ago. You helped me. It was you that Bulma's husband was talking about, it was your gift, wasn't it? You gave me my strength. You're also the reason I don't have the muscles to show for it. Please, let me help.
"I..." He looked like he might cry. His eyes shined in the moonlight. His mouth gaped, and he gently slid out of her grip. Videl stood up straight and just stared at him. He looked so sad. Then he lifted off and was gone.
No, not gone. Videl gave chase, running as fast as he could fly, trying to follow his energy, trying, trying so very very hard.
Then the heavens trembled, the sky opened up, and its tears met Videl's. She was leaning against a building, just hurting.
"No no no, why did you have to do that? Why..." Her eyes were lost. That was what she had set out to do, ne? Get lost. And now she was lost. More lost than ever. In sight of her goal. Her goal? Her dream? Loneliness struck so deep... And thought seemed ignorant of her condition, so her idea was for nothing, she could never get so lost that this heartache wasn't ever-present.
She was thoughtlessly hitting the bottom of her fist against the wall, just staring blankly into space. Futility was her ally. Oh, what a friend. She felt as though her heart had been pierced.
Then anger took over and she smashed a fist all the way through the wall. Too many questions, about herself, about this guy, about this dark enemy, too many! Videl wanted to scream.
She took the long way home.
-*-
Gohan made it home and crawled into bed. Good thing he had left the balcony door open.
He was pissed at himself. After he had let himself down, she had gotten into the fight. Then everything got all jumbled. Her questions were going inside one part of his brain, which was trying to answer them, but then the other half was giving in to the rapture of his arm around her, how that was the answer to everything. She was the answer. Just return to her, his mind was saying. But there was something wrong. He had frozen, as though he was afraid of solving all of these problems. Afraid of the arms that could hold him, support him. What was wrong with him? He didn't want to deal with this.
When she had stared at him he had seen... himself. She was as forlorn as he was. And so terribly lonely. He was good at reading eyes. Whispers of thought were rendered visible through the eyes. Especially the deepest sort of pain. He tried to shake off his guilt and the tears that fell down his cheeks.
Then there was that she had somehow learned how to sense energy and couldn't ignore it. Would she search for him? What would he do? It wouldn't be too sharp for a while yet, and still, it might be that she could only sense him as well as he could sense her. However, she hadn't been sensing her own self for the last eleven years or more. And it had changed only four years ago, and her senses hadn't been adapted for too long.
But still, if she did find him- no, he had been super-Saiyan. She wouldn't recognize him and he could talk his way out of it. She might figure it out if they continually met on her search, but still, he knew how to lower his power as well. Yet, why was he running in the first place? He had wanted so much to find her, and now... He really didn't want to think about his problems right now.
So, not to worry. Just don't freeze up next time the girl of your dreams saves your life, and tries to help you. And don't worry about Babidi for a while, since his right hand man is out of the picture. At least, that's assuming he was the right hand man of Babidi.
Gohan fell asleep to the thought of a certain girl, with dreams of long, dark black hair, and arms that were so small yet held a strength beyond the dreams of many.
Just out reach, because of his own fear.
-*-
Babidi had just finished another tantrum when he settled down into his chair and spoke to himself with heavy-lidded eyes.
"I have to make that trip now. Go with my second plan. No longer will I just take people off of the streets. There's no one strong on this world, anyways, who might turn to evil. At least, not apparently. And I don't want to be too wasteful. I'll have to abandon those other three cities, but they weren't efficient. I'll give them all a supply of lamps before I leave. Then I can build up my base of soldiers, starting with that very special new general. By the time I return the tournament will start, and the very strongest beings in this world will be there. So will the purest of heart and strongest of body; so it has been foretold. That is where my plans will apex. Buu will rise.
"My enemies on this world are now visible, as well. I am glad that I was able to sense power through Arush's mind. Stronger than they had been the last time, they were. And it is certain that they are only two. Let us see two against a horde of the universe's elite!
"Dabura, I am coming."
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