A/n: I'm back from Japan, and have managed to squeeze something out of my rattled and jet lagged brain for your enjoyment.(now that you all hate me) I have also noted that I'm at 50 Reviews!! This may seem like a piddling amount for any other author! But I don't care! Yay! This means that by chapter 34 or so I should get to 100! (34 !? Please tell me I didn't just commit myself to writing 16 more chapters when I just started to get to the climax! I don't think this story is designed for 34 chapters!)

Disclaimer: I own Geneth... I own Issac. I don't Own the bodies that Geneth and Issac inhabit. I don't own the universe that they are placed in either, nor any of the people I expect that they will interact with. I do like to think that I own my story and my demons, but I really think that my story has claimed a little piece of real estate in my brain, and is pulling random pieces of my thoughts together and putting them out through a keyboard onto this screen. I rather think that it was a nice piece of my brain too, probably somewhere in the creative bits, with a nice view of the neurons and it's own cappuccino maker. My story Owns Sarah and Caleb. It keeps them locked up in the back shed, along with that plot line that I started with piccolo.

***Chapter 18: Patterns***

The explosion had subsided, and the dust was already begging to settle by the time that the supreme Kai, and Dende managed to get outside. Fine particals entered their noses along with the smoke, while the domes that represented captured demons were entirely obscured. If you squinted hard you could almost make out a hunched figure that began to rise through the smoke, slowly, deliberately, as the observers felt their hearts pound not only in their chests, but in nearly every region of their bodies that had at least minimal blood flow.

Dende swore he could have felt his ears beating.

The Figure began to unfold it's self, a process that seemingly took forever, while in reality it lasted less than 10 seconds. It was like watching some humongous beast awaking from hibernation, limbering up to go on the prowl for fresh meat to bolster it's starving stomach. It's shoulders were broad, and rippling with muscles, It's thighs bulged, with apparent strength, though the lower part of the figure's legs were still obscured by the smoke. Slowly, as it;s head rose, it appeared as if it had thin sharp horns protruding from it's head, wickedly pointed. The obvious appearance of a demonic aura waved in small tendrils about it's head.

The smoke cleared a little more revealing what ever it was limbering up, stretching for a fight, and positively brimming with years of authoritative militaristic rule. It expected to be obeyed, and with all probability it would be. Revealed was a bag, most certainly containing instruments of torture and evil.

That's when the figure took out it's pointy horns, allowing a coil of something to fall loose. It smoothed out the demonic aura around it's head, rewound the coil and then rammed the horns home with almost frightening accuracy. It should now be noticed that the figure was shorter than the 7 foot monster that it was expected to be. More precisely it was exactly 5 feet, 4 and one half inches tall. Probably a more important fact was that it had just produced a cosmetic's mirror from it's bag, which for some odd reason appeared to be pink. The mirror had a black case with a butterfly on it. With a decisive snap, the mirror was shut, and shoved back into the pink bag. There was a mutter about how her hair never managed to stay straight after trans dimensional jumps. Various mythical deities were involved, in rather unpleasant contexts.

As a matter of fact, this thing, for all intents and purposed looked like an aged lady, albeit one that was blue. Shin, now that the threat of extinction of self due to an attack by unexpected hostilities, began to relax. After all, how much harm could one old lady do (albeit, once again, one that was blue).

The old , blue lady turned around, and Shin felt, for probably the first time (and definitely not the last) in his life that deities had someone to pray to. Since he didn't;t have many options there he simply let his spine go completely rigid, like a ramrod. He now could not have backed down even if he wanted to. He was not sure if this was a good thing.

She simply smiled and said. " Right world then." this was not a question, but a statement, so secure in it's conviction that had it not been the right world, reality would have tried it's very best to make it so. She frowned at the apparent Pinkness of her handbag. The threads wiggled and then slowly from the corners towards the center, like an ink stain, it began to slowly change to a dark, midnight blue. As the colour seemed to have finished changing there was a pregnant pause, as if the object was waiting for her approval, quivering in fear of what may happen to it if in fact it did not.

She nodded, and there was an almost audible feeling of relief . Dende almost began to feel relieved himself, if only in the smallest possible way. It was then that he noticed Shin standing to the strictest attention, a bead of sweat running down his cheek.

She began to advance, with the most menacing and Authoritative stride known to human kind. She stopped about 4 feet from Shin and looked carefully at his pale purple face and said:

"Oh. It's you."

****

In some small way, they both knew it to be a lie. But there was a warmth in each other's arms that they could not find anywhere else, a sense of ultimate acceptance of their flaws, the feeling that, somehow, somewhere everything would be alright. As long as they were together nothing could hurt them it seemed. This was about to be put to the test.

Issac squinted into the sun and say the most horrific creature he ever seen in his entire life, well lives. It looked like it's gore covered flesh had begin to melt off it's spindly frame, that the whole unbalanced contraption of teeth and claws would and could fall apart at any moment, yet still manage to kill you as it did so. It was flying towards them with sickening crunches, it's mad red and yellow bulging eyes fixed upon him

"Geneth, Geneth" He moaned, clutching her to his chest even more tightly as he flew.

The Creature reached them and stopped it's advance. It began to circle.

"Promise broken Long ago. Revenge must be enacted and the balance of truth must be restored." It said, voice rasping and broken. "Broken in Battle. Broken in Blood. Broken to self, thrice is this thing." Issac pulled Geneth behind himself. "Son Gohan, the progeny of Son Goku, you have been judged on the scales of honesty and have been found wanting." To which, Issac simply replied

"I am not him."

"Lies" It hissed.

"I am not the person you have spoken of, nor do I know the crime that he has committed." Geneth pressed her face into Issac's bare, warm back. She wanted nothing more to be a silly little girl for once, the kind she chided others for being.

"A promise broken to himself, and to his Father. A promise that was broken in his failure to defeat what he could defeat. A failure to save the lives of one of those he promised to protect, one who in turn had promised to ever protect him. Lastly a promise to self to give up that which he hated, that which he could never turn his back on. The lure of the fight, the spar, the battle the challenge. The promise to protect, In which again came failure in the losses, the injuries, the deaths."

"How long ago was this promise broken." Geneth's voice piped up from behind her lover's shoulder. "How long ago did he do these things." She wanted it to go away, so badly she was even willing to fix whatever it had come for.

"7 years" the thing hissed. "And for 7 more did he try to forgive himself, but could not find forgiveness in his soul for the death of Goku. He could not give up the fight, nor could he give up peace. He could not protect the world for but one promise, and admittance of self doubt, though in his doubt he swore to protect it. Everyone was born anew except for him, in his doubt."

"What must he pay, to assuage theses sins" Geneth asked, her tone formal and grave. Her voice had gained confidence. Issac reached behind himself to hold her hand.

"A Debt must be paid, in Blood, or in love. For everything that he has broken he must give back to the world twice as much. Death is eternal, and easiest. Love changes, and if if falters I may come for him again. Perilous is the journey of the man who choses love. They all fail"

"Do you say that the path of love is failure? That it is impossible?" Issac asked quietly, a silent anger and disbelief straining to get out.

"Love is a promise even greater than the promise broken by Gohan, an even greater responsibility and trust. If they would fail in that, we would come for them." It gnashed it's hideous teeth impatiently, as if waiting for the charade to end. It wanted blood as simple as that. "Choose Gohan. I am old, and you are lucky that I give you the choice. In my youth I would have torn you apart where you stood. I still will. Choose."

"But I am not..." Issac began

"He chooses Love." Geneth finished, pushing forward. A cold wind blew her hair about, as the weight of the promise settled heavily. Everything seemed to fall into an even greater pattern than the one that ruled the lives of Geneth and Issac. Wind spouted up in a great gray swirling wall around the three of them, tugging fiercely at hair and torn clothes

"Whom shall he love." the demon spat, disgusted at the choice.

"The fairest maiden in mine eyes, the other half of my soul." Issac said, Eyes, burning fiercely. The promise became heavier upon his skin. He clutched Geneth close, burying his hands in her hair. She did not speak, but rested her head across his broad chest. She felt like some sort of wishy washy girl, but she knew that she could not do much else, or it might break this ethereal trance. It was a pattern again, another bloody pattern. How she hated patterns.

"For how long."

"Forever" It settled like a skintight suit that began to wriggle it's way into his body. Goosebumps raised on his arms and legs, as an incredible coldness sunk in with it. Geneth felt it too, but not half as heavily as it weighed on Issac.

"The bargain is sealed the Promise made. In It's breaking shall come death." The wind suddenly vanished along with hideous creature. Issac, so strong, began to lag in his support of himself in the air, and slipped from Geneth's grasp. A woman of action she dove after him, desperately grabbing for an arm or leg so that he would not hit the ground, some 50 feet below.

He hit anyway.

****

Goku arrived to the lookout to a very strange scene. He had the little girl or demon or whatever it was closely held in his arms, which surprisingly bore a few scratch wounds from her seemingly innocent and well trimmed nails.

There was an old blue woman staring down the supreme Kai. Smoke was still clearing and there were several shimmering domes scattered around the place. Shin looked as if he wanted to drop dead, Dende looked like he already had died, and his Corpse was trying to make up for it. Vegeta had just run out to see what the commotion was, and was swearing profusely.

Goku landed and took a few steps forward. The girl screamed and struggled, a sound so ear splitting it was all Goku could do not to drop her and cover his sensitive sayian ears.

"Abducting little girls now Kakkarot? I never expected this out of you." Vegeta drawled, his tone carefully calculated to send the most stalwart of defenders into a bloodthirsty rage. It would have annoyed a stone.

A stone with no ears, nor any other sense of perception for that matter. {1} Goku, who had the unique ability to be thicker than a mountain if he wanted to, chose to ignore it. Deception, however picked up on Vegeta's now obvious dispensation to protect small children. At least, that's what she picked it up to be. Always one to exploit, she decided to play it up

"Help Help! The Bad Man is hurting me!" She shrilled, pushing on Goku's muscular arms in an attempt to escape. Suian Whipped around from her investigation of Shin's faults. Deception stopped cold, in mid kick. Her nails dug more deeply into Goku's iron skin, drawing tiny blossoms of red that welled up around her fingers. One small stream dripped down, a detail not lost on Vegeta the Sayian Prince. Nor was it lost on Suian, but she had been expecting this.

"Mistress, Help me please! The child whined and wheedled. "He will Hurt me and destroy me, oh good Mistress, can't you see, that I heard of your coming and I was coming here to help me when this buffoon Attacked me, your loyal servant on my way to do your bidding."

"We have been through this before." Said Suian in Calm measured tones, designed to quiet an unruly child. The pressure of the demon's nails lessened slightly on Goku's arm. She removed one hand to fawn at Suian's hair, her hand soft and clean, nails with a soft shimmer, as they captured the light, absent of the blood that had stained them. This spell was broken by Suian, in the form of a backhand across the demon's small cheek. Goku involuntarily let the thing fall from his arms when the blow connected. Deception was thrown several feet, and she scrambled over to hide behind Vegeta.

"Sniveling Brat!" He growled. He too had noticed that she had managed to draw Kakkarot's blood, and had reached the conclusion that she was not just some child. She wrapped her arms around both his legs in an iron grip, nearly making Vegeta loose his balance. Suian stormed over to where Deception had crawled, and picked her up by the scruff of her neck. Deception hissed imperceptibly, like a snake, and let her sweet little child facade drop, to reveal the murderess within.

****

When Suian had dropped her steely gaze from Shin's face, he had almost began to breath a sigh of relief, until he saw what had happened to Goku at the mercy of that thing. Now he was desperately trying to weave another net, another shield to trap her up in. He was still tired, exhausted from the previous weaving s, and Dende could only lend hem so much strength before he two became too weak. He watched as the glimmering threads began to form in his hands, electric blue and fading. Slowly he tied the first knot of the web. As each connection was made, those sections were remained clear and firm, but every time he took his eyes away, one of the threads would begin to fade away at the ends.

He watched in panic as the small demon began to gallop towards him and past, clamping onto the legs of Vegeta. His web was less than 3 feet square, hardly sufficient for one capture. Not only that, but the demons that had already been caught were growing restless, they could see their fellow scampering about. Discourtesy snickered when she scrambled for Vegeta. Hopelessness looked on with more passive interest than she had before, and Depression just stared at the ground, looking as if he would like to give up again, even though he already had.

Suian snatched the net from his hands. She wrapped it's 3 foot length around the majority of the demon girl's body. She twisted and snarled, kicking and trying to free her arms from the trap. Suian neatly dodged several well placed kicks, humming a tune that was, while not particularly unpleasant, very disturbing. She pulled a white handkerchief from her little pink bag, and draped it neatly over Deception's head, where it grew to the size of a table cloth. The ends were neatly tied less than 10 seconds later, and the kicking of the demon stopped.

Suian turned and squared her shoulders, and somehow managed to look all of them in the eye at once {2}.

"It's a good thing for you" She said, "That you met me."

****

The warm feeling from before was gone.

Now it was a burning agony, that twisted in his shoulder, that scorched through his veins. He was so weak, so weak. It burned and he itched.

Somehow that almost made him laugh, that he hurt so much and he could still feel itchy. Warmth tricked down through his clothes, at an almost alarming rate. The places that liquid warmth did not touch were cold, freezing even in the chilly autumn air. He could hear sirens, and ragged breathing. Trembling hands lifted him somehow, and bound up, what he had now concluded was a gunshot wound. The warm trickling stopped, and he tried to crack open an eye, sticky with his own blood. Faintly, he saw the blood spattered visage of his friend, dirty tracks down her face from the tears that ran down it.

"Caleb..." She whispered.

A tear spattered on his cheek

"I didn't mean to hit you. I didn't mean it I swear. Please forgive me Caleb, oh God your bleeding so much. Forgive me I didn't mean to. " She said, touching his face, and shirt. Her hands were cool on his skin. He suddenly realized how very hot he was. He tried to speak and managed a croak. The sirens grew louder, and he managed to tilt his head to the side to see the unmoving outline of another person, unholy and mangled as it was.

"Dead?" He managed to whisper.

"Bullet through the brain" Sarah managed to choke out.

"Good shot."

"Not nearly good enough" She said, as if talking to her self. However, Caleb reasoned, In a few minutes, she probably would be.

****

{1} As a matter of fact, Vegeta does annoy stones. After all, you don't think they shatter into hundreds of pieces just for one little aura did you? This way they get as far away from him as possible, while extending as little possible effort. (*)

{2} Even Goku, and He was Behind her.

(*) (My first double footnote ever! ^_^) It has not yet been determined weather all rocks are affected, or only little yellow ones that you tend to see on the tv shows ~_^

A/n: And this is the bit where the chapter would end, and I would ask you politely for your thoughts on the blood and carnage I have wreaked on the lives of our favorite characters. I Also plan on writing for you the Origins Of Geneth and Issac, probably for the next chapter. Damnation, now I've gone and committed myself haven't I? I welcome your wild speculations as to who Gen and Issac really are or, were for that matter

Anyway, Thanks to everyone who reviewed. In a sense: "Thank you come again!" - Apu

~Min