I know the last couple of parts had been dragging, but I'd been busy extremely distracted this summer (Driver's Ed is just like school, only more boring and over-airconditioned.) I'll try to poop out better parts from now on, with more likable action, for, as I've been counceled, detail and description is a lot like love, it is the spice of life, but it can choke and smother anything alive if over-administered.
When you go to bed with soft blankets, a tender matress, and a well stuffed feather pillow, it's rather peculiar, down right surprising, to find youself waking up on the floor, laying awkwardly on your shoulder, without your blankets--hell, without your bloody shirt.
As Gohan blearily opened his eyes, he contemplated this.
He was less coordinated in waking than he had been in months; drowzy, groggy, his eyes puffy and swollen. Had he been crying in his sleep? Kami he hoped not, he was getting rather old for that. On his back, his hands flat on the floor at his sides, his tail was gently curled around his right leg, the tip swaying lazily back and forth against his ankle. He must look, he mused, rather funny and more than a tad vulnerable with his bare chest and legs exposed for all to see.
He stared at his cealing, unmoving but to blink, or the gentle swish of his tail. All was silent. Peaceful. Quit serene, really. Quiet. Were he on Earth, he could swear birds would be singing outside.
He wanted to get into a fight.
It was an odd hankering, one highly out of character for him, as he was well aware, yet it was indisputably strong, and loudly predominant in his mind. He must have had one hellishly bad dream, adrenaline was already pumping strong and true through his system, and as consciousness crept back to him, flushing out the muddy waters of his mind, his heart beat faster and faster in his chest.
He had the strong urge to get up, go outside, and punch Bojack square in the jaw, just to see the Biraju-jin's reaction. Oh, he knew the reaction. Bojack had already demonstrated, loudly, his tendency to retaliate.
Kami, he wanted to fight something.
He raised a hand up, and fumbled along the top of his bed until he found one of his blankets, with a tug, he pulled it down to the floor and spread it out over his legs, and up to his chin. He wasn't cold. He just wanted the blanket. It smelled like Earth.
He glanced at the window in his room, his perspective skewed by his ground-level angle, and saw that the sky was still rather dark out. It was early, early morning. Oh, yes. The birds would be singing on Earth right now. So freaking loud sleep would be impossible.
It was such a vivid memory, the sounds of the birds, that even when Gohan closed his eyes to sleep again he imagined he could hear them, twittering and warbling their little hearts away until he was almost driven mad with the cranky impulse to go outside and light all the trees of Paouzu Mount on fire, just to get a few more hours of sleep.
His tail twitched against the ground with annoyance.
He rolled over, throwing the covers off, and, supporting himself heavily on his knees, stood up. Even the good memories were irritating right now. He was in an angry mood, a bad mood. A raving, flaming fighting mood.
And he was famished.
He walked stiffly through his house, his abused body sore and unbending, his left leg refusing to support his weight and throbbing out his hearts rhythm. Scratching his stomach, he paused at the enterance of his kitchen to scrutinize his spotless linoleum with surprising annoyance. It looked almost too clean. He could still smell the pine-scented disinfectant he had used to scrub everything spotless.
It churned his empty stomach. He wrinkled his nose, and walked to his fridge on his toes, lifting himself above the sickeningly clean floor as far as possible. He was full of ugly hate right now. Hopefully food would help with the problem.
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Four o'clock.
After fruitless hours of lying awake, staring at his cealing, eyes wide open, Henning decided sleep was not coming. He tried tossing and turning, changing to countless positions, with his pillow, without it, tried laying on his back, then on his side, then on his face. He groaned and moaned and loudly lamented his hurting side, then smiled and giggled as he thought of something rather pleasant.
Son Gohan.
He still remembered the sound of the boy's tortured screams, and the smell of his blood, and the look on his face as it tightened with pain; remembered how his slender body had twisted, and how his tail had coiled so humbly between his legs, and, yes, the gleam of life in his eyes as he lashed out. And he remembered, with specific detail, the way the boy had felt, his thoughts and his dreams and, yes, his pain, and horror and fear, deep and swelling, his fear of death and fear of life and the unknown, hand in hand with his curiosity and dignity, pushing him forward through his life one tentative step at a time.
Now that he was gone.... Henning felt left out, somehow. For one momentous half hour he had been the major playing roll in that boy's life, and now.... Now he was out there, living and breathing and thinking, without Henning....
It was then that the Tahch-jin discovered he still had four more hours to wait until the troups and the packing were completely ready. And it was then that he decided to get out of bed and get dressed, pulling his favored hat over his blue hair with definate gusto. And it was then that he decided to get his brother up as well.
For it was also then that he decided he and Joru could be ready to leave within half an hour, and could begin scouting out the land.
He was going to find that boy. Now. No more waiting.
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The food Gohan had stolen from the Tahch-jin was almost gone. Two bins. Enough for one good meal, or two lousy ones, was all the remained from the heist. The boy ate only one container's worth as his morning sup; the thought that soon he would be starving and out of food--unless he tried stealing more from the Tahch-jin, which he didn't really consider as an option--did nothing to help his mood.
After breakfast, broodingly, he washed his hands and, not bothering to get dressed, he got out the scarf around which he had carefully wrapped the pieces of his project, and returned to the livingroom, where his tools and toolbox had been left out over night. Sitting on the floor, crosslegged, his tail loosly coiled around his thigh, he began to work. Diligently. Mindlessly. He allowed his mind, as dark as it was, to haze and wander, while his mechanical instincts took over the tasks of his hands.
He had anxious energy in great abundance, and he didn't know why. He didn't like being in a bad mood, didn't like the feeling of annoyance or vicious hate, or how he swore at even the slightest mishap; everything was a bother to him. The sound of his house settling made him want to hit things, the crick, crick, crick of his screwdriver, busily working on his project, made him want to scream. His tail lashed and cracked like a whip against the ground.
He wished he knew at least what was putting him in such a state of mind. He shook his head at himself as he continued.
He had to use a pair of needle-nosed pliers to hold some of the mechanical pieces he was using, fitting them together in a way he could only hope that was right, and using a small pair of tweezers to connect the semi-final product to a watch battery. He was pretty sure he knew what he was doing now. Without the weary sleepiness of last night, thinking through his project was easy. Too bad the task wasn't.
He was trying to make a transmitter miniature enough to connect to his walk-man's headphones. They were the small kind of headphones that fit into each ear individually. They were extremely small. Extremely complex. Gohan, too busy to open them entirely up and see, was only estimating, hell, guessing, at their wiring. The hardest part, by far, was reversing the second pair of headphone's purpose; altering their purpose of auditing sound to picking up sound.
But Bulma had taught him well. With a warrior's steady hand and a mechanic's well-trained eye, he had assembled a set; two ear pieces, into what he was pretty sure to be his goal.
The were each about the size of his thumb nail, and as he held them close to face on his palm, he realized just how delicate of work he had been doing. He almost felt proud of his accomplishments; he had no book, no instructions, no tutor; yet he was next to certain they would work right.
He had made two communicators.
To finish them off, he went to his bedroom closet, and got out a metal clothes hanger, tearing off two lengths of wire about five inches in length. Bending them around the mini-communicators, he made secure ear wires.
Expirimentally, he hooked the wire around the back of his ear in such a way that the cannibalized earphone fit snugly into his lobe, with the other, altered earphone-turned-microphone angled in the general direction of his mouth. Finding the particular switch, his tail curving hopefully behind his back, he turned the device on.
Kkkhhshhkkk, an explotion of static bombarded him; still not totally awake, it hurt his poor Saiya-jin-sensitive ears like crazy; the hair on his tail stood on end, his teeth ached. He quickly grabbed up the other reciever, fumbled over it until he found its switch, and turned this one on as well. The static stopped, replacing the savage buzz with the dull hum of machinery, an almost expectant, waiting sound.
He tapped the mini-reciever in his hand, hearing a reassuring thump, thump, thump in his ear. It was working. Thank kami, it was working. Still, he had more testing to do, and he was going to need some help.
He stood, careful to set the two pieces of machinery--irreplacable in this situation--on the lampstand of his living room, and went to his room to get dressed. In his Saiya-jin suit and Earthling boots.
For some odd reason, the thought of his clothes made him feel a tad happier. Even if it was just a little bit. They really did look funny.
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Chiling the Aeesu-jin, traitor to Joru, was frightened almost witless; his ability to speak had dimished to studdered 'yessir, no-sir's, his placid Aeesu-jin face wriddled with worry lines, and his old childhood nervious habit of messing with his mouth had returned.
As he stood before Heng, the great and mighty Heng, and his two giant, powerful secretaries, he wondered if perhaps he had made a mistake betraying Joru to come forward. It had felt so noble when he first thought about it, of how patriotic it would be to point out the most deadly threat imposing itself on the Aeesu-jin people in all history. To save the entire planet, and to rescue his fair planet from the clutches of the evil that held her.
He had thought he would be rewarded. Given a medal. Fame, glory, prestige.
He feared for his life as he stood, his tail proclaiming submissiveness, his head lowered, his tongue busily circling his mouth in restless energy. He was waiting. Standing quietly while the three giant Aeesu-jin mulled over his revelations.
Finally, a great rumble came from deep in Heng's throat; a growl more menacing than a great beast of prey, and in his growl he said a word, "Henning."
Eagerly, the youngest remaining secretary leaned forward, "Sir," he said, "Let me gather up an army. We'll march to the Tahch-jin fortress," he paused, his ocre eyes looking to Chiling, "This little fellow could lead us there, and we could kill off every one of them-"
"I agree, sir," Tzukalt said, nodding his domed yellow head, "This had gone on long enough-"
"Henning will die," Heng said, "But only when I say so. For now.... Chiling!"
The small Aeesu-jin could swear his heart stopped, he looked timidly about the room, expecting some other Aeesu-jin with his name to come forward. Finally, sucking at his front teeth, tentatively, he said, "Uh...yes?...Sir?" Immidiatly feeing foolish afterward; he sounded like a clout.
"Go back into this Tahch-jin strong hold. Keep a constant vigil on the Le'Armont brothers, follow them wherever they go." He turned to his secretaries, explaining, "Henning is looking for Son Gohan. Where there's Son Gohan, there is Bojack. Can you imagine all three of them, the Tahch-jin, the Biraju-jin, and the Saiya-jin all in the same place at the same time?"
"We could kill three birds with one stone," Tzukalt agreed, "So to speak."
"We would be doing more than that," Heng said, waved his arm at Chiling, "You have your orders."
"Yessir," Chiling said, exiting, feeling down. He had left the Tahch-jin to escape their insanity, in hopes of improving his life. Instead, he was being thrown back. No medal for him. He would probably be killed later.
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"What is it?" Forester asked, slightly nerviously, as Gohan fastened one of his newly-made communicators to his ear. It was more diffucult than expected; he had forgotten that Aeesu-jin ears and Human/Saiya-jin ears were differently shaped. He was glad he had asked the Aeesu-jin boy for help in this area; one side of the transmission was meant for an Aeesu-jin to wear.
"It's a transmitter," Gohan, already wearing his own head-set, said. When he had finally twisted the earwire to fit securely, yet comfortably on the side of Forester's head, he stepped back. "It's for long-distance communication."
Tapping it and lightly touching it expirimentally, Forester inquired, "Where'd you get them?"
Gohan fingered the titled 'on-switch' on his own ear, replying distractedly, "I made them this morning." He turned his head to the side, pointing out the switch for the other to see, "Turn it on. I want to field test them."
Screwing his eyes and he felt along the machinery blindly, Forester did so, flipping the little switch. The raucus sound of static sounded until Gohan, too, turned his on, and the expectant buzz-silence filled their ears.
A frown wrinkled Forester's forehead while, for the first time that day, Gohan smiled.
As testing ground, Gohan had chosen a large, open field, surrounded by jagged boulders; powder blue and light purple grass carpeted the ground beneath them; Aeesu grass accentuating the Aeesu-jin boy's pale green skin, while at the same time making Gohan appear more and more out of place, foreign. But Gohan felt mis-placed in a good way. It was an odd reminder that, though he didn't belong here, somewhere out there he did belong, and he was taking the steps neccesary to return there once again.
The mood would have been almost happy, if it weren't for the two boy's audiance.
Seated along the rocky wall surrounding the clearing, not too close to one another, nor to far away, were the camp members in their number's minute entirety. Sunow and Eesei, whispering occationally to eachother, sat on the same boulder, the little girl stretched out to collect sunlight into her reptilian skin and rest her head on her father's lap. Twenty-or-so meaters from them, on a jagged miniature cliff-face, Freeza sat, legs crossed; his hand, elbow on his knee, supported his head at the chin; his ruby eyes flitted from the boys in the grass, to the father and his daughter, and the pale purple sky.
His mind was on other things, unknown, and of little importance to anyone but himself.
On the other side of the field, his granite eyes concealed behind partly close lids in reflextive meditation, sat Garlic. Half-listening to the boy's conversation with his acute, pointed ears, and half-following the chi's of the Aeesu-jin miled away, mulling in the underground, he had a mild sense of unease. The phrase 'something evil this way comes' continually played in his mind, ironic for one such as him, for he prided himself of his own entirely unholy view of life. He was an evil bugger and damn proud of it.
But Bojack's attention was souly focused on the activities of the field, and of each movement the two youths made. He did not sit, but stood, his arms crossed, his head down, looking up through his brows at the two boys. A silent warning, an unspoken threat. His presence was not to be ignored.
As Gohan gave Forester some last minute instructions on use and manipulations of the second-hand pieces of scrap transmitters, he could feel the blue giant's gaze on the back of his head, never fully allowing him to forget the gravity of the situation at hand.
Not even two days left.
Tick tock. Tick tock.
It was damn nerve-wracking.
Walking backwards until a space of fifteen feet stood between him and Forester, Gohan tapped the microphone of his transmitter, then said in a low tone, "Can you read me?"
From the fifteen feet away, Gohan saw Forester shrug as his voice carried clearly, if not with a bit of static and interference, "Loud and clear. You hear me?"
Gohan gave a sigh of relief. Though all his calculations had been checked and rechecked, and he had already done his own, smaller testing with successful results, he had still been deathly afraid that it wasn't going to work. Afraid that something was wrong that he hadn't noticed before, or there was a connection failure, or he had simply overlooked some important fact or other. But here was Forester's voice, transmitting through his own creation, with approximated clearity.
He almost felt like dancing; his dreary mood had partly melted back into his defrosting sense of hope. Underlaying his optimism, however, he still wanted to attack something or someone and just fight; storm the Aeesu-jin underground with no goal other than a body count and no objective other than the high of battle and the thrill of the fight and the ultimate victory found in a vanquished foe.
He shook his head at himself, his tail lacing up around his wrist, and he said into the reciever, "Okay. Walk back ten more feet."
Forester obliged, and the two continued testing for a good hour more.
Garlic's sense that something bad was happening increasing by the minute.
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Henning stood atop a crest of jagged rock, his cape fluttering in the wind behind him, his hat pulled down to shield his eyes from the gleam of the rising sun. He glanced at his watch.
Six o'clock.
Turning, he called behind him, "Come, now, brother, hurry up!"
There was a mumbled, angry reply, as two white hands appeared at the lip of the crest, and, gradually, the shape of Joru Le'Armont appeared, climbing and scrambling until he was beside his brother, "I didn't want to go, Henning dear," he said, pulling his own blue-and-black hat tighter on his head to keep it from blowing off in the wind. "You could always have gone without me."
Henning only smiled, clapping his brother on the shoulder as he stood up, "And go without your pleasant company? You must be mad. Do you remember when we were children, and you used to always cry to mother when I left you behind? Well, now that I'm not leaving you, you're still upset?" His blue eyebrows wrinkled in mock-offence, "I'm hurt, brother. There is no pleasing you."
Looking down at the scaling, fifty foot drop beneath them, Joru began to realize he might have a fear of heights, "Oh, Henning, let's go home, okay? I'm feeling ill. I need to take a shower-"
"Oh, learn to have a little fun," Henning interupted, then gathered his legs beneath him and leapt from the craig, half-flying a good seventy feet to the next rocky out-crop. Heights, obviously, had no adverse affects on him. Turning, he yelled through the sudden distance between them, "It's fun to be dirty, sometimes!"
Trembling, not bothering to reply, Joru hesitantly coiled his legs beneath him to follow his brother's insanely dangerious jump. The Tahch-jin had potential to be qualified warriors, they were naturally strong, quick to react in combat situations, agile, and rather large. Their one drawback, which Joru was loathing fiercly at the moment, was their peculiar inability to manipulate their chi well enough to fly.
Jumping was the extent of un-aided airborn travel.
So jump Joru did, flailing through the air as he had done countless times since leaving the Tahch-jin fortress, unprotected, and in great fear. He wished he had at least had time to call for a few sentries as escorts.
They had been traveling for longer than an hour by now, their inborn stamina allowing them to travel a good fifteen, twenty miles in that short a time, each mile gained causing Joru's weak stomach to sink into his guts, and Henning's heart to soar through the sky with the chiruping birds and the drifting clouds.
As they scaled a final bluff, they looked down apon a beautiful sight, one of a sea, or possibly an ocean. Water, reflecting the purple sky until it looked like liquid amethest, crashing against the stones along the shore in a wash of diamond droplets, spraying twenty feet into the air. Along the edge of the water ran a length of light gray sand, and beyond the sand was a series of patches of light purple grass and deep purple shrubs.
Both brother's drew their breath; Henning removing his hat at the majesty of such a sight, Joru rubbing his hands against his pants, feeling very dirty in the presence of such rightious beauty.
Henning saw Gohan's capsule house first.
Putting his hand on Joru's shoulder, he pointed at the domed white complex, sitting at quite a distance from them, just out of reach of the shoreline, "What's that? Over there...that white thing."
Squinting, Joru leaned forward, the bill of his hat blocking the sun from his eyes, "I don't know. Could it be some sort of structure? Ahouse?"
"Let's go check it out, then," Henning said with a boyish smile and, grabbing ahold of his brother's cape, he began to run down the side of the bluff, the white capsule house, in such contrast to its dark, morning surroundings, growing closer and closer, unprotected from the two Tahch-jin making their way toward it.
To be continued......