Disclaimer:
All DBZ characters belong to Akira Toriyama.
The other ones belong to me :p

YELL
" Someone has taken the idea of revenge a little bit too far "

Chapitre ELEVEN : "The Best Friend"

Trunks was still lying on the floor, not daring to move, gazing the killer standing next to him, of which he could only glimpse the shining mask in the global darkness of his dark toga. He felt unable to move, not due to the pain in his neck, but due to the deep terror that was paralyzing his muscles. He suddenly got a flash on a moment of his childhood, a moment he would never have imagined that he would one day to remember of...

He was five years old and had taken the opportunity of a free Saturday where his father hadn't grabbed him by the tee-shirt yet towards the training room, to go to Goten's house. With Gohan, the three of them had gone into the mountains - less familiar environment for Trunks than the city and its dangers - and the afternoon had been shared between amusing fights and discoveries.

At a precise moment in that afternoon, Gohan had put a bunny in Trunks' arms. The animal seemed calm and didn't try to escape, even if Trunks, hesitating on the behavior to have, didn't tighten his arm around it, letting him free of movements. He had turned to Gohan with a wide smile. "Look Gohan, I tame him only by touching him!"

Now Trunks could understand. It was not the calm, but the total terror that had immobilized the bunny.

//Do not worry//, the killer's calm and soft voice said, //I told it wouldn't be your turn today, and I'll keep my words//.

Katrina!

Trunks gathered his ki and, ignoring the pain, jumped in the air, making a sweeping with his left leg in order to mow his opponent down, but one more time, the latter dodged with a fluid retreating movement. He disappeared by the door both of them had passed a few moments before. Trunks started pursuing him, but had to stop for two seconds, taken by a slight vertigo due to the pain in the back of his neck. A good sign: the pain was decreasing. Trunks bit his lower lip violently in order to leave his torpor. A taste of blood invaded his mouth but he didn't pay much attention to it, crossing the open door.

The killer was nowhere in sight, but Trunks knew where he had probably gone. He leaped in the direction of the laboratory where Katrina had taken shelter.

***************************

Bulma hang up the phone-receiver, remembering one more time of the conversation she just had with Hayden's assistant. No, the intrusion alarm hadn't gone off; Yes, she had activated them before leaving the building where her son was; Yes, two fire detectors had gone off consecutively. No, none of the watching cameras were working, same for the rest of the security system, except for the fire alarms, connected to another circuit.

She clenched the Uzi in her hands. Jones had told that she was sending backups in case of, but had asked her to remain cloistered in the shelter of her parents' building. She was worried for Trunks, but wondered if, in case of conflict, she wouldn't be more a trouble for him than a real help. Then she remembered of the way Gohan had been killed: with a laser machine... The opponent wasn't perhaps as strong as the powerful enemies they had all faced in the past, and perhaps that that series of phone-calls was just a way to install a kind of psychose to compensate for a lack of offensive power.

Confident, she walked to Bra's room to check that everything was okay before going into attack.

***************************

Trunks was running along the silent corridors, silence only broken by the sound of his steps echoing on the walls. He wasn't taking in reverse sense the way the killer and himself had taken a few minutes earlier, made of detours and loops, but he was taking a shortcut that only a perfect knowledge of the place was dictating him.

In his mind, he was trying to make a summary of the recent events: the killer had spared him... At least temporary... Trunks thought: this entire chase among the Capsule Corporation corridors, this brief fight, he could scarcely imagine that it had just been set-up for the killer to remind him that he wouldn't be today's victim. To move him away from Katrina? No, it could seem possible, but if you referred to the killer's speed, he could have as well ousted Trunks from the beginning and finished Katrina in front of him, as he had done for Gohan...

But perhaps this wouldn't have been subtle enough for him. If you analyzed the way the phone-calls were done and the way Gohan's murdered had been orchestrated, the killer liked to add an artistic side to his actions. As a cat playing with a mouse. Killing someone coldly didn't seem to interest him. Trunks thought that if the victim were offering himself or herself to the killer, the latter would loose all interest in him or her.

It's not someone who acts impulsively, Trunks thought as he was approaching fast the door that would lead him to the corridor where Katrina's lab was, each action was prepared with art and time...

At that moment, he heard a deafening explosion as well as Katrina's scream, a silence, then several gunshots.

What? He's already there?, Trunks thought, unbelieving, as he was passing the door like a fury.

***************************

Bulma was alerted by the gunshots. She was in Bra's room, assuring herself that her daughter was safe before going into exploration in her own building. She was still tergiversating about interfering or not - with the eventual risk to be a trouble for her son - when the sound of gunshots helped her to decide. Listening only to her maternal instinct, she went out of her daughter's room, locked the door and rushed for the exit, clenching her uzi against her. In a distance, she could hear the police sirens... But perhaps would they arrive too late...

***************************

Trunks was running towards the lab's door with the damn feeling to run in molasses, with the lab-door moving backwards as he was approaching it. The silence was worst than anything. No, it wasn't really pure silence. There was still this unstopping and annoying sound of water from the anti-fire system, pouring from two sources into the corridor.

Then suddenly, as he was going to put his hand on the door handle, dreading what he would find on the other side, the door exploded in his direction, projecting him half-unconscious against the wall.

In the confusion that followed, Trunks got the feeling that an old dream was coming back in his mind. He was swimming in a dark and cold water, trying to edge his way through pipes arranged in a random pattern; saving his remaining oxygen as his lungs were starting to burn. Over him, he could distinguish a vague light, as if over water it was twilight.

Then the vision vanished, and as he was trying to recover totally his mind and to move himself away from the door half-covering him, Trunks saw with a deja-vu feeling the killer walking slowly towards him among the new flames and water falling in droplets from the ceiling... The killer stopped a few feet from him and seemed to consider him calmly - but you could never say, with this livid mask on his face.

The vision was blurred; Trunks blinked tightly to clear his sight, but when he opened his eyes again, the killer was gone.

Had it ever been real? , he wondered, before remembering of Katrina. He freed himself from the door, and rose on his feet, leaning against the wall.

From the wide entrance of the lab, he could distinguish a few objects with the light of the flames, but no movement could be detected.

Why did he use a weapon? Trunks wondered, walking like an automate inside the lab. I am sure he doesn't need that to eliminate someone...

His shadow, projected inside the lab, was masking most of what the firelight would have revealed, but he noticed immediately the wide hole in the wall on his right. It was probably from where the killer had entered the lab. Now that he was thinking about it, he had previously seen that the door of the previous lab was slightly opened. But in his rush to reach this lab, he hadn't paid much attention to it.

He glanced around the various items, broken for most by the explosion and lying on the floor. He moved his glance away from the wall while still noting the damages when an irregular and metallic light-reflection caught his attention. He half-closed his eyes to reduce the influence of the glimmer from the fire in the corridor and distinguished a gun, aimed at him. Almost simultaneously, he heard a weak and panicked breathing.

"Katrina?"

He heard a variation in the breathing rhythm and, walking towards its source, could finally see who was aiming the weapon in his direction.

Katrina was alive. From where he was, he couldn't see if she was hurt or not, but he could see her eyes, and what he read in them stopped him on the spot. She had taken refuge in a dark corner of the lab, but he could read in her eyes the panic of a prey at bay. And of course, the wide mouth of the weapon aimed at him. She was probably in total panic, Trunks thought. And panicking people have sometimes impulsive and unexpected reactions.

She's gonna shoot me if I don't identify myself, Trunks thought, she must be thinking it's still the killer...

He raised a soothing hand before him and whispered with a calm voice while exposing his face to the changing and flickering light from the corridor: "Katrina... It's me, Trunks... You have nothing to fear anymore... He's gone..."

For a few seconds that seemed to him like eternity, Katrina kept aiming him, a strange expression in her eyes. She doesn't recognize me or what?, Trunks thought, unease, before seeing the weapon lowering slowly in a shaking movement. "Trunks?"

The voice was almost inaudible. Trunks rushed towards her, kneeling and put his hands on her shoulders in a protective attitude. He felt she was trembling under the contact, but felt something else, also... He didn't need the light to recognize this sticky sensation under his fingers.

"Katrina, are you hurt?"

It was more an observation than a real question. He felt the palm of his hand covered with blood. At that moment, Katrina collapsed in his arms, as defeated by the tension, crying against his chest.

"Oh Trunks... he..."

Trunks passed his hand through her hair, "Sshhhh... Kat-chan... It's over.... It's over...". He had to repress a shudder; the contact with Katrina had abruptly brought a strange and somehow unpleasing sensation to him. Before he could analyze it, the sensation disappeared as quickly as it came. He shook his head, blinking several times.

Softly, he removed the weapon from her hands, dreading a new uncontrollable panic-crisis. He could hear in a distance the police sirens, wondering if it was for them and who had warned them.

Holding the gun in his left hand, Trunks held Katrina against him with his right arm and helped her to rise on her feet to lead her in a safer place. She collapsed again against him and he got again that unpleasant sensation, as if he had put his hand on a snake nest. He realized he had been close to push her away violently. What's happening to me? Repressing that dark sensation, he started to walk with her, carrying her more than just holding her up. They reached the exit of the lab and walked towards the middle of the corridor, trying to avoid the fiery scraps littering the floor. Trunks got the sudden thought that they were in an open-space and that he hadn't checked if there was an enemy presence in the corridor when a movement in the corner of his eyes caught his attention.

By pure reflex, he turned on himself, holding Katrina against him, and aiming his weapon on...

...Goten, who was standing in the middle of the corridor, an expression of horrified surprise and incredulity on his face.

"Thanx God, you are both alive...", he let go in a sigh of relief.

Trunks lowered his weapon as Katrina was collapsing again against him. Goten ran forwards to help Trunks to hold her.

"Take care!", Goten screamed, catching Katrina as her knees were letting go. He looked at the blood on Katrina's shoulder, then raised his eyes on Trunks' face whose cut lips and forehead were covered of blood, even though the young semi-Saiyan hadn't realized it yet. "We'd better move away from here", Goten said with a firm but worried tone. "You are both hurt..."

Trunks frowned; he hadn't noticed yet that he too was bleeding. He passed the back of his hand holding the gun on his forehead and examined the blood he brought back. "Boah... I've seen worse...", he said, morose, remembering the fights against Buh, Broly, and so many others during his childhood. Goten understood what Trunks was meaning and smiled. The dangers one had been through, had no secret for the other one.

"Perhaps", he whispered, "but we'd better not loose any time here", he added, passing an arm under Katrina's shoulders, apparently the most hurt - especially morally - of the two.

An item fell from the pocket of his coat and hit the floor in a deaf sound. Trunks didn't pay attention to it, too busy observing the corridor in the eventuality to see his enemy back- his assassination attempt had failed and Trunks was thinking that the killer wouldn't let his work unfinished - when he felt Katrina clinging to him.

"Oh my God... Trunks, look!"

Katrina's voice was almost a whisper, but loaded with panic. Trunks followed her gaze and saw the item fallen from Goten's pocket. A cell-phone of which the black plastic was gleaming softly in the light of the flames. Goten saw his friend's face turning pale suddenly. He lowered his face towards the cell-phone. "Ah...". He lowered to grab it, but when he rose again, his gaze met Trunks', incredulous, and Katrina's, horrified.

"What?"

Katrina moved herself from Goten's sustaining arm to hold Trunks tighter. Goten frowned and repeated: "What?"

"It can't be...", Trunks whispered.

Goten turned his gaze towards Trunks whose look was displaying a complex series of emotions such as fear, surprise, anger, sadness, ...

"But, what?!", Goten asked again, frowning deeper. Trunks and Katrina made a step backwards. Goten was still holding the cell-phone in his right hand, arms apart. "What's going on?!"

'Stay where you are...!", Trunks was gazing Goten without really believing to the situation. He felt like he was going to turn nuts. It couldn't be true... And yet, what was Goten doing here in the middle of the night?

"Trunks!!", Goten said, moving a step closer, "what's--?"

"I said STAY WHERE YOU ARE!!", Trunks yelled, aiming Katrina's weapon at Goten, still not believing the reality of the situation. Mirai-Trunks will arrive, he will propose me a ride in his black Honda prelude, with Gohan sitting on the back seat, and afterwards I will wake up in my bed, screaming insanely...

And everything will be fine...

At that moment, the corridor was wiped with an intense white light. The next moment, a voice resounded. "POLICE!! FREEEEEZE!!!"

***************************

Bulma was walking towards her building among the cars with aggressive revolving-lights, afraid of what could have happened to her son.

"Don't pass, Madame!" a voice said as a hand was landing abruptly on her shoulder.

Bulma released herself violently, "I live here! It's me who called you!!!", and without paying attention to the cop's embarrassed apologizes, and edged her way among the men in uniforms when she heard a dialog that made her shudder as the deja-vu feeling was strong.

"LET ME GO! I DID NOTHING!!!"

"Do you wish to give up your right to remain silent?"

"I DID NOTHING! ASK HIM!!!"

She edged her way between two cops as large as bulls and the show the saw let her mouth agape, making her thinking she was probably in the middle of an absurd nightmare, the type of nightmare she was getting after a drinking-party.

Blinding spotlights were wiping the scene. On her left, bathed in a cold light, she saw her son...

Alive...

... who was holding against him Katrina, wrapped in a blanket as two nurses were trying to take the two teenagers away with them.

"Do you wish to give up your right to speak to an attorney and have them present during questioning?"

"IT'S NOT ME!!!"

Bulma turned her head on the other side of the scene, and saw...

... Goten, scarcely held by four policemen who were trying to immobilize him.

Goten?

The deja-vu feeling came back with a vertigo sensation. She got the feeling that all the blood had left her face. Goten? But what's happening here?

"We caught the murderer", the voice of a policeman near her answered. She realized at that moment that she had asked the question out loud.

"But... it's not true...", she mumbled, "it can't be --"

"TRUNKS!!"

Goten rushed forwards, ignoring the policemen's efforts to hold him still - what could mere humans do against a semi-Saiyan? - and moved closer to Trunks and Katrina. "I did nothing! It's not me! I SWEAR it!! You know me enough to know I tell the truth, right?!"

Trunks was remaining still, his complexion pale, and his eyes wide with something inside indicating he had lost connection with reality. Goten seemed to desperate in front of his friend's silence, but before he could move forwards again, one of the policemen hit his back several times with an electric stick. Goten didn't loose consciousness, but felt his legs giving way beneath him and his breathing cut.

"Everything you'll say might be used against you", the policeman was continuing his litany, reading the Miranda's warning on a piece of paper yellowed by the time and probably the frequent use done with it.

Goten managed to raise his head towards Trunks before being dragged away. Trunks seemed like marble, but on the edge to loose reason. He wasn't doing anything to help him, he was just remaining still, looking him with wide eyes.

"I thought... that you were my friend... Why...?", Goten whispered weakly. And the policemen blocked Trunks from Goten's view, preventing him to see the mask of intense despair that had appeared on Trunks' face as a low moan of pain was rising in his throat. One of the policemen, Donnahue, yelled to the others: "BUT TAKE HIM AWAY, GODDAMIT!!! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!"

Bulma arrived at that moment near Trunks and Katrina. "Trunks, what's going on? Why Goten--"

She interrupted herself, seeing Trunks' face expression. The paleness of his skin was making with contrast the blood on his face even more apparent, as well as the terrified and lost look she could read in his eyes. Even Mirai-Trunks had never display such a look in his eyes. At least in the present. It was as if Trunks was hesitating between screaming or bursting into tears. He seemed untouched by the voices around him.

In the background, the firefighters were entering the building to finish any surviving fire. A car parked in the enclosure of the Capsule Corporation, Hayden and Lee came out of it.

"Shit! We arrived too late", Lee whispered.

Seeing that a group of policemen was dragging someone to the police-van, Hayden walked towards them. He couldn't distinguish yet who was the arrested person because of the number of people between the van and him. He saw Donnahue walking towards him.

"We have something?", he asked with his calm and expressionless voice.

"Yes", Donnahue answered, apparently out of breath, "We caught the killer. We witnessed him with a cell-phone in his hand, and Trunks and his girl-friend Katrina keeping him in distance with a gun. They are both hurt and will leave to the hospita--"

"Wait a minit!", Hayden interrupted him, "Are you telling me it's not Trunks the killer?!"

Before Donnahue could answer, Hayden edged his way among the mass of policemen present as the van was starting. He got a glimpse of Goten, sitting between to armed policemen before the van was too far away.

"Goten Son?", Lee asked as she was reaching Hayden.

"Yeah yeah", Hayden answered, frowning, "I remember him well. He was the one who testify in favor to Trunks when Pan Son received a phone-call... The Best Friend..."

He turned towards the ambulance where Trunks and Katrina where placed, and gazed at the whole scene with a strange look.


[ To be continued ]

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Gomen nasaaaaiii for the time it took to update from chapter 10 to 11 ^^;;;

I haven't been a lot of ff.net lately... too much work, and an heroic fantasy movie "RUNE" to prepare for January (by the way, if you live in Belgium and in Nortth France, or Luxembourg, and wish to be part of it... Feel free to contact me ^^; )

But anyway, Booo-hooo-HOOOOO ;__; I almost didn't get any review for chapter 10... I almost wondered if people still liked the story of not ;___;
*crycrycrycrycrycrycrycrycrycrycry*

Thanx VegetaGokuLover and Eddie for your reviews ;-)

I know that YELL 14 has been waiting for long on the Future Trunks Domain, but it was first so huge that I have to cut it in half, and now, the bad thing: the translation into english... (it always eat so much time ;___; )
But good new: I found my french-english dictionnary again :D
So, afterall, it should be faster than planned ;-)

Hope you liked this chapter, and beginning of next month, I post YELL 12 here ;-)