Disclaimer: It isn't mine, I'm not making money on it, and I'm perfectly aware of all of it. I'm just borrowing it for a while.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
From the instant Piccolo had launched himself off the island, Krillin had known there was something amiss and had immediately gone into battle preparation mode. Piccolo was not one to panic lightly, and anything that elicited such a reaction from him definitely counted as a threat. So he did what he thought would help during a crisis situation: he began rounding up the rest of the Earth's defenders.
The monk rushed back inside and dashed to the kitchen faster than Master Roshi and Oolong could stop bickering and gape at him. He grabbed the telephone and frantically dialed the Capsule Corps private line, for friends of the family. Yamcha picked up on the second ring, and it was all he could do to keep from wrenching the phone from the wall. "Yamcha, it's Krillin! I'm coming over!" the midget yelled.
The ex-bandit grimaced. Kami, that man could be loud when he wanted to. "What happened, Krillin?" he asked. "Is there a problem?"
"Hello! Can't you feel Piccolo's ki? It's spiking all over the place! Something's up with him, and I think it's pretty serious! He was acting all weird and stuff on the island, and I don't know what the matter is! I'll see you in a few!"
Yamcha opened his mouth to say it was fine with him, but he would have been speaking to a dial tone. He frowned, closed his mouth, and placed the phone back in its cradle.
"Who was it, Yamcha?" Bulma called from the kitchen.
"Krillin. He said he's coming over."
The scientist glanced up from her salad as the warrior joined her in the room. "Why would he be doing that?" she asked, setting her fork down. "He visits all the time!"
Yamcha opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water. "He says there's something wrong with Piccolo, and he went into panic mode over the phone." The man tilted his head to the side, staring past the ceiling in what Bulma liked to call his ki-sensing pose. "Krillin'll be here in a minute or two – he's really speeding along – but he doesn't have anyone with him. Odd. You'd have thought he'd try to find Goku or Tien, or even Chiaotzu."
Bulma frowned at the same time Yamcha did. "That's very odd. Krillin's coming this way…Tien's not near anyone at all, except Chiaotzu…Gohan's with his mom…and Goku is with Piccolo – damn!" The man's eyes snapped back into focus, and he appeared panicked. "Their ki levels are so high! If I didn't know any better, I'd say Piccolo just got a hell of a lot stronger, and then decided to pick a fight with Goku! But that's impossible, isn't it?"
"You tell me," Bulma replied, studying her boyfriend's face carefully. "I don't read ki, Yamcha."
The man mentally kicked himself. How had he missed those two before? Between them they had enough ki to make even the blind see, so to speak. There was enough of it bouncing around wherever they were, likely the Lookout, that he was surprised the horizon hadn't lit up like a light bulb with it. Not only that, but now that he had time to think about it, Piccolo's ki did seem off somehow. A bit darker than usual, though it was to be expected. The guy was a demon, after all, and it was nigh impossible to find a pure demon, much less one that was easily identifiable as being one of the 'good guys'.
"Well, I thought it would be impossible, but I think that's what's happening, wherever they are. Their ki seems too high for a bout of sparring." Yamcha frowned again, in confusion this time. "Now Piccolo took off. This doesn't seem good, Bulma." He exchanged glances with the scientist and humphed. "I want you to take your parents and hide somewhere. Take something to arm yourself with."
"You sound like you're going after him."
"I plan on it. He's the second-strongest guy on Earth, Bulma. If he's gone crazy, he won't hold anything back. Goku will be. He'll need all the help he can get. He's following Piccolo now. Kami, it's so hard to think of him as a demon again, after thinking of him as a Namek for more than a year. I think we've taken him for granted for too long."
Bulma caught herself before a sob could escape from her throat. "If you're so set on going, be careful, won't you? I don't think he'll take it easy on you because you're human."
Yamcha chuckled and hugged her to him. "Worry about yourself. If Piccolo's turned psycho on us, there's no telling what he will do. There are a lot of people that have rubbed him the wrong way, and he would go after them first."
"Provided there's something radically wrong with him after all."
"Right. I'll wait outside until Krillin shows up, and then we'll both try to join up with them."
"Good luck, Yamcha."
The man paused before leaving through the side door. "Thanks. I'll be back when this is done. Just don't forget to hide."
Only then did Bulma realize that he never drank his water.
Gohan barely pulled his arms up in time to block a fist that would have connected with the side of his skull. "Piccolo, why are you doing this?" he cried, ducking under a second swing. "What's happened to you?"
"A sudden realization, brat," the demon snarled, swiping at the boy's face with one taloned hand. "You and yours have done me more harm than good, and I mean to correct it."
Gohan gritted his teeth as he jerked to the left, feeling his mentor's leg pass through the air next to him. "What's wrong with your voice?"
"None of your business. You won't live long enough to find out now, and neither will your mother." The demon knocked the demi-Saiyan to the side, the force of the blow hurling him through the table and into the wall. "I warned you to stand aside, boy. My plan did not involve you this soon." Then he turned his gaze to Chi-Chi, who clutched one of her kitchen knives to her chest. He frowned. I did not see her arm herself, he thought in irritation. Perhaps my control of this body is not as solid as I thought it to be. "So you want to play, do you?" he hissed.
"This isn't a game, Piccolo!" Chi-Chi exclaimed loudly, though her voice was laced with fear. She gave the knife an experimental swipe. "I don't know what you're trying to pull, but Goku is going to be here any minute, and he'll wipe the walls with you if you don't leave!"
Shadow chuckled at the woman before him, so obviously terrified and yet determined to hide it. Most demons would have groveled at his feet to save their pitiful lives. Most demons would leave their offspring to fend for themselves. It was obvious she was doing neither, and he silently applauded her efforts. "I do not fear Son Goku," he said. "When I have full control, he will be no match for me."
"What do you mean, full control?"
The demon scowled. He had let too much slip. "This ends now," he growled, and he began charging a ki ball in one hand.
Chi-Chi felt her jaw drop, even as she gripped the handle of the knife tighter. The incongruities of the past few days suddenly dropped into place like so many puzzle pieces. "You aren't Piccolo, are you?" she whispered. "You're someone, or something, else."
"A clever one, aren't you?" The ki ball grew larger and took on a red hue, matching his glowing eyes perfectly.
The woman tensed her muscles and shifted her weight forward. With luck she would get one blow through to the demon before he reduced her to ash on the kitchen floor. It had been many years since she had last used any weapon other than her fists, but she was not a warrior for nothing. She had competed in the semi-finals of the Tenka'ichi Budokai, nothing to scoff at, and had gotten herself out of more than a few tangles after Goku had died. She could do this. She would do this. She had to.
She gritted her teeth at the other warrior's mocking laughter and launched herself forward, aiming to wipe the smug grin off his face. She inwardly smiled at the flash of surprise across his countenance, but she knew he would stop her. She simply wasn't swift enough to score him. Chi-Chi could hope, but she couldn't fool herself into believing she could hit him.
Surely enough, the creature in Piccolo's form caught her wrist easily enough and forced her to drop the knife. "Did you think you were accomplishing something?" he hissed into her ear, wrenching her arm painfully behind her. She grimaced. "You could not stop Piccolo years ago. There is no possible way you can deter me now."
"I might not be able to, but I don't have to."
The demon puzzled the matter for a heartbeat, before his head was snapped back by a blow to the neck. He growled as he lost control of the fully formed ki ball, and it went careening through the Son residence and off into the night. That was the third slip of the night. He could not afford any more. First, the Lookout. Second, giving away his secret. And third, Son Gohan.
He whirled around with Chi-Chi still in his grasp and scowled at the young demi-Saiyan, the expression punctuated by a particularly loud peal of thunder. Apparently Gohan had not been deeply unconscious, as he'd thought. The warrior was impressed, nonetheless. The child had endurance and determination, and if he had been a hair stronger, the boy could have snapped his spine. Or perhaps, he told himself, he was holding back. After all, did he really want to kill his mentor? "If you desire to die first, boy," he snarled, "I'll be more than happy to oblige."
"I heard what you said, and you're not going to get away with this!"
Shadow laughed. "I don't suppose you think that you shall be the one to release him, do you? I feel obliged to inform you that there is no way of freeing the last child of Daimao. For all intents and purposes, he is gone."
"You lie!" Gohan shrieked, and flew straight into the demon, hammering at his chest. He let the boy hit him. The futile attack resounded through the room in the same way as a large drum. The green man was surprised the boy had attacked, but reflecting on it later he should have known better. Gohan owed his mentor a great debt, and his honor – for such a warrior must still have some, he was so young – would not allow him to rest until he had found a way to repay it. At least that was what Ma Junior thought. When the boy swung around behind him for another blow to the head, the demon grabbed his leg and slammed him into the ground. Chi-Chi screamed.
"That is quite enough," he growled as the boy gasped for breath. "I am through toying with you." Almost absently he remembered that he still held the boy's mother, and he rolled his eyes. Both Earthlings found themselves dragged through the remains of their door and into the night, one panting, the other trying to claw herself free of the creature's grasp while doing her best not to sob. "I have other things to do, and I can ill afford to waste my time on you."
Lightning crackled across the sky directly above them, and Shadow smiled despite himself. A thought had just come to him, too tantalizing to dismiss. Perhaps it would be best if he did not kill Son Chi-Chi, he mused, and he chuckled. Perhaps he should merely crush her, cripple her, so she would bear silent witness to the horror he would bring upon the Earth. Come to think of it, it was an excellent idea. He would make her watch her own husband die at his hands, his blood dripping between his fingers and making soft dark splotches in the ground…
The demon grinned. Sometimes he amused himself.
To say Chi-Chi was startled when the thing in Piccolo's body dropped her was an understatement. Her first reaction was to flee, but her immediate second was to stay and fight for her son. As swiftly as she could she was on her feet and had aimed a kick for the green man's stomach. Just as swiftly she was blocked, and with a bright explosion of color she was airborne. The woman crashed through only one tree before slamming into a second past the yard, and she slid down the wood with a moan. The crack she had heard was not the tree.
The demon had barely executed the roundhouse before he felt two kis nearing the forest, and himself. "These humans…do they know nothing of staying out of matters beyond their control?" he muttered.
Gohan decided to come to life then and tried to kick his knee back against the joint. "You hurt my mom!" he yelped, the high pitch of his voice causing the demon to cringe. Perhaps Daimao should fix that problem when he regained his material influence. It certainly would not hurt. Well, maybe a little, but by then Shadow would no longer be in the spawn's body. "You hurt her!"
"Fancy that."
With surprising agility Gohan twisted in his iron grasp and sent a hastily-gathered ki ball into the demon's side. He roared and dropped the boy, and he wasted no time in distancing himself from the creature. He made it halfway across the yard before the counterattack came, less than a second after the blast had made contact with the demon's skin. Gohan's world turned red with the light of the furious ki at his back, and he howled with pain as the return blast exploded upon his back.
Shadow spat as the child crumpled. "It's your turn, boy. You're more trouble than you're worth. I do not know what Ma Junior saw in you." He started forward to finish what he had started when another voice interrupted him.
"Leave him alone, whoever you are," Goku growled, landing just behind the other warrior. "And get out of Piccolo's body."
The demon whirled around with a dancer's grace and laughed to mask his embarrassment. He had not noticed the other man's approach, even though Goku had the highest, most noticeable ki on the planet. "Or you'll do what?" he sneered. "Hurt me? Kill me? Whatever you do to me, you do to Ma Junior's body. If I die, he dies."
"I know. That's why I'm giving you the chance now. Leave while you still can."
He shook his head in wonder at the furious Saiyan warrior. "This young demon once wondered why you offer every opponent you fight the chance to change, when deep down you know they will not. What makes you so sure the situation has changed?"
Goku dropped to a lunge and brought his fists on guard. "I have faith in Piccolo. If I know him, he's fighting you even now, and I don't think you can handle two battles at once."
"You think wrong, Son Goku."
The corners of Goku's mouth twisted into a grim smile. "I doubt that."
The demon also drew back into a defensive lunge, but the posture was so different from anything the Saiyan had ever seen that Goku frowned. "Care to try it?" he asked, flinging his arms out briefly before resettling. "You seem confused."
"You look like a tree."
Shadow snarled, any amusement he felt gone. "It's a small wonder Daimao wants you destroyed. You are a disgrace to warriors in all planes of existence."
"You wouldn't know," Goku retorted. "You're nothing more than a parasite. Now quit talking and start fighting!"
His words were lost in the colossal boom that accompanied the demon's first ki-charged strike, and then there was no more time for talk. There was only action, reaction, and the blazing ki.
North Quadrant: Earth's orbit
Space was dark. Dark, but beautiful in its own wild way. And clear, for miles in any direction the eye might choose to look.
Vegeta's gaze was drawn to the surface of the planet he orbited. Within the past hour a few major ki storms had brewed down there, and even now he could see the faint glow of its use from his ship. "What in blazes are you doing, Kakarot?" he grumbled, staring out one of the many windows off the deck. "You're setting up a light show for the Earthling scum, that's what."
The Saiyan prince scowled again and closed his eyes for a moment, reading the strong ki on the planet below. One of the two powers was Kakarot, he was sure of it. The other he did not recognize, though it too seemed familiar. He could not be certain of its identity, new at ki-reading as he was, but he was willing to stake his pride on it not belonging to any human.
"What choice does that leave me?" he asked himself, twisting his eyebrows into a scowl. "If whatever it is down there reads ki as well, it will know I'm up here. If it does not, it is none of my concern."
At any other time, even while still in Frieza's army, Vegeta would have cursed and went off on his way. But he was intrigued at what this new power might mean. A new challenge, most likely. But could it be the one to push him over the edge?
Could this be the battle that would see the prince make the transformation to Super Saiyan?
Vegeta smirked. Foolish Earthlings, indeed. He would never turn down a chance like this!
He waded through the debris on the deck to the computer and entered the command that would send the Capsule Corp. ship back home, so to speak. Then he leaped into his seat and strapped himself in, preparing for reentry.
"This could be fun."
* * * * *
I wish you all a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and the most fervent of hopes that you're not out sick for the holidays.
And a lot of chocolate wouldn't hurt, either. *grin*
~Dreamwraith