Undiscovered Territory
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Spirited Away
It was too bright in here.
Of course, it was too bright just about anywhere someone went on this blasted planet. With no night, the eyes were constantly subjected to the brilliant inferno of the multiple suns that cast their rays upon this world. The concept annoyed Shale to absolutely no end and his current situation was not helping him any.
A bright and cheery sky was a most unsuitable complement to being a prisoner, after all. Not that from outward appearances this place would seem like a prison; the natives did not seem to have any construct of such a vein, at least not in this tiny village. And so he was being held captive in a small house, with multiple round windows that let in the ever so mocking and out of place sunlight.
He shielded his eyes against the light and took a glance out of one of the windows, already knowing what he would see there. And this knowledge was true as a particularly imposing native looked back at him over its shoulder, frowning darkly. With nothing else to do, Shale gave it a malicious smirk and turned his gaze inward again.
The smirk faded as soon as the guard could no longer see him. Didn't these overgrown slugs ever take a break? Every time Shale looked out one of the windows of his prison, he was met with the sight of the green skin and antennae of those with the clear stature of warriors. He wasn't very good at telling them apart by physical appearance – all these warrior types looked just about the same to him – but he got the impression that these were the same ones that had been guarding him from the start. It must have been hours at least, right? Time passed in strange ways here, so he could not be sure. Still, these wretched creatures had to sleep sometime, didn't they?
He tapped his foot impatiently on the floor. This was getting ridiculous. He almost wished that they would just kill him and be done with it. They surely would never just release him; he had attacked their little excuse for a village after all. The thought of spending the rest of his life in this hovel was disgusting beyond words, and he was simply not going to stand for it any longer.
The idea was far too simple, but it was all he had to go on at the moment, and he was more than tired of waiting. If this got him out of here, then that was great. If what it accomplished was finally getting him killed . . . Well, he was willing to accept that if he had to. Truth be told, he barely even cared anymore.
Shale lifted one hand over his head, palm turned skyward. Strenuously, he poured ki into this hand – he had never been good at channelling ki in this manner; flying was so much easier a manipulation than a blast. But he managed it, blue sparks forming around his hand, gradually coalescing into an undersized ball. Sweat poured down his forehead as he tried to concentrate yet more power into that hand, and he brought his other to grasp at the wrist, steadying it while it quivered. The ki ball had to be bigger if he wanted to have any decent shot at this.
It seemed to take a while, but eventually the ball reached a size to his satisfaction – that, and the fact that he was quite sure that he could channel no more power there. With a final, strained breath, he pushed the ball away from his hand.
He was not quite prepared for the rain of whatever material made up the building, and scarcely managed to cover his head as it came down upon him. But this was a moment that he could not afford to waste. The confusion was something he needed to be working in his favour, and if he didn't get moving now, he will have wasted it.
The hole was barely big enough to fly through, though it was serviceable enough; he was able to make it through without much squeezing. Whatever direction the ship was in, he could not quite determine; having been knocked unconscious and moved about had messed with his orientation. But the main point was to escape this village, and so he took off in a random direction.
He didn't get far before the first attack came. At the last second, he was able to duck underneath the punch, only to fall victim to a follow-up kick. Shale didn't bother attempting to counter; he wasn't fool enough to think that such an action wouldn't ruin his chances. Rather, he increased his speed as much as possible.
And yet the attacks did not stop coming. Much as he tried to escape the flying limbs, he could not. Perhaps if he had not used up so much ki in blasting that hole through the ceiling, he would have had more energy to flee. As it was, he could not reach his usual maximum speed.
Blows landed now, few but powerful. Something inside of him snapped at each one. By now, he was really beyond caring; he knew which route this escape attempt had taken, and there were no regrets on his part, even as he felt himself falling toward the ground.
At least there was freedom.
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The chaos was astounding.
Scargo had barely recovered both his wits and his breath after a ki blast had torn a hole in the ground scarcely in front of him by the time the battle was joined. He dared not move from his current position for fear of his own life, but he could recognize the sounds and the occasional sights of battle from back on the old planet when his village had been attacked. Voices carried over one another in what seemed to be a contest of who could yell the loudest . . . limbs thwacked against one another as blows were landed . . . the flashing lights and sizzling of ki blasts made the sky seem like it was on fire . . .
The only constant seemed to be the Dragonballs, sitting ever still, a bastion of solidarity in the raging storms around them. While Scargo had always been fascinated to some degree with the Dragonballs, they had never seemed to have this profoundly mystical aura that they projected now. It was as if they were the centre of the world, and everything around them was too weak to make them stray. For a moment, Scargo's mouth dropped open in wonder.
But eventually, even the centre of the world moved. By what force Scargo did not know, but the four star Dragonball was jarred from its placement and rolled a bit toward him. Scargo carefully crawled forward a little, some logic working through his mind. However mystical the balls might appear, they were not so strong that they could not be broken. If he got ahold of it, perhaps he might be able to protect it, to keep the wishes away from the evil people who sought to use them. It was an appealing prospect, to be a hero, and this prospect overrode the fear that swelled inside him.
He edged closer to the Dragonball, but did not leave the safety of the underside of the ship. Straining, he reached his arm out as far as he could. No luck; his claws didn't even graze the ball's surface. If he seriously wanted to do this, then he would have to leave his hiding spot, if only for a few seconds.
Scargo paused, biting his lip. Go out into the midst of a huge battle? Had he lost his mind? No. He wasn't going to do this. Everyone else here was a warrior, and they could take care of things. They didn't need him. He was just a little kid, so what could he have done anyway? Although . . .
He quit biting his lip, and scooted forward a little more, the front half of his body clearing the edge of the ship. All of the sights and sounds that he had experienced previously came out in full force now, and he cringed, barely resisting the desire to cover his ears. Battles were joined everywhere that he could see, and the occasional body littered the ground, not always one of the aliens. Scargo's throat went dry, and he almost froze, but he avoided it. He had to keep moving if he were to get his hands on the Dragonball.
But before he could continue, a large pair of hands reached down toward him, and he ducked back under the ship, eyes squeezed shut in fright. That was it. He'd been found, and they were surely going to kill him. Memories of his previous death shot through his mind – the brief yet painful surge of heat on his back, and the darkening sensation he'd experienced as he had dropped toward the ground . . .
And yet nothing was happening. Tentatively, Scargo opened one eye, glancing about. There was no pair of huge alien hands in front of him anymore. He put a hand to his racing heart and sighed, though this relief did not last long as something very worrisome popped into his mind, and he stiffened.
The Dragonball wasn't in front of him anymore either.
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He dodged around a flying limb, carelessly whirling about with a backhand fist in response. This blow landed and he performed a half turn in the opposite direction, jabbing his elbow into his opponent's gut with what remained of his momentum.
This move cost him though, as his opponent recovered quickly, slamming a fist into his backside. Limpet tumbled toward the ground for a moment before flipping back into an upright position and launching a ki blast from readied hands. He didn't wait for the blast to complete its trajectory and shot after it, thrusting his fist into the face of his opponent just after the blast struck. Unsurprisingly, his opponent dropped unceremoniously to the ground. Well, that was another one down.
But still so many more to go. He barely managed to duck under a punch that came at him from the side from yet another attacker. Though from appearances he and the other warriors were doing rather well, they were still outnumbered by quite a bit and that was bound to take a toll.
Concentration had never been one of Limpet's strong points, but he focused it all now on his current battle. Other things could wait for later; they were not his concern at the moment, no matter that he wanted them to be.
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He noticed that he was getting dropped to the ground quite frequently today. The overwhelming numbers doubtless had something to do with it, but it was irritating just the same. Still, he was not seriously hurt on any of these occasions – just as well, considering that his ribs had not fully healed from the raid on the village – having the presence of mind to envelop his body in a ki shield before impact. He could easily get up to fight again, and by the look on the faces of his various opponents they were quite confounded by this.
All the better to take them down quickly.
A shocked opponent was also an easy opponent, and Chiton took full advantage of their surprise. A kick here, a punch there, the occasional ki blast . . . He doubted that many of them knew just what hit them before they knew nothing more. All in a day's work, really.
Nonetheless, he knelt on the ground for a few seconds, drawing breath into his body despite sharp protests from his still-injured ribs. The combat was being rather hard on him, and now that he was momentarily free of an opponent, he had the time to gather himself a little bit, to observe the situation around him as he was wont to do.
On an upward glance, he noticed something curious, but before it had time to properly register in his mind, he was faced with a new attacker. Chiton brought his arms up in a block, then waited only an instant before lowering them and driving a fist into his attacker's stomach. Though his opponent staggered, he did not fall and came at him once more.
What Chiton had seen was important – he knew that instinctively – but he had no time to worry about it now. Only when this long battle was finally over.
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He found little challenge in the individual battles here, but when he had to take on more than one enemy at a time, Whelk had a bit more trouble dealing with it. Having to watch from all sides was an impossible task and were he not skilled at sensing ki then it would have put him at a near overwhelming disadvantage. This way, at least, the disadvantage was minimized somewhat.
There was no time to waste upon finesse. All of his blows were hard strikes to the vitals and some of his opponents fell by just one attack. The few that righted themselves as they tumbled through the sky he took out with highly concentrated ki blasts that connected with both them and the ship. And all the while as this happened, he hoped that those blasts did not hit near wherever the children were held. Certainly, the children could be revived once this was over, but Whelk would never recover from the guilt and shame if he discovered that he had brought them to harm.
Whelk flared his ki around him, a brilliant blue-white flame, knocking away all of his present attackers. He paid little attention to their falling bodies, as they showed no signs of gathering themselves before they hit the ground. Rather, he took stock of the battle situation; his vantage point was high above any of the others so that he would not get in the way of other fights and cause unnecessary problems for his comrades. By and large, things seemed to be going rather well. Though outnumbered, his people seemed to have cut down upon that particular disadvantage.
Still, that didn't mean that he couldn't still lend a hand. He angled his flight downward, ready to embroil himself into a battle that one of his fellow warriors seemed to be having a bit of a problem with, but something suddenly more important caught his eye.
Without another thought, he shifted his course toward this sight.
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How was it possible to feel light-headed and heavy headed at the same time?
It was a strange question, but one that Dende found himself pondering as he awakened. The drug that had been forced through his body was still wreaking its havoc and yet at the same time he felt a giddy sensation sweeping over his skull. This was perhaps one of the most unusual experiences that he'd yet had in life – and he was not exactly in short supply of those.
Which brought his attention back to the situation at hand, whatever it was. Perhaps he was undergoing yet another one of Doctor Gneiss' tests? Unpleasant sensations were a matter of course in such a thing. But somehow, it just didn't add up. Exactly how was something that he had not quite figured out yet.
Against the violent protests of his lids, Dende willed his eyes to open. The protests were not entirely unheeded though; he could only manage this halfway before his eyelids seemed to be trying to support a house rather than his vision. Still, this was something, and he dazedly waited for his sight to clear.
Had he the energy, he would have started in shock. No longer was he in the lab of that terrible Doctor Gneiss, being forced into some painful experiment. Rather, unless his sight was deceiving him, he was in the air – no doubt carried by someone as he was certainly in no condition to do any flying of his own. This thought relaxed him a little, and he decided to let himself drift off again. Everything was fine now. He had been rescued . . .
This time, he had the strength to jerk in surprise, his eyes flying open. As they had been sliding shut, Dende had caught a glimpse of his carrier's backside and saw lines that could only indicate the presence of armour.
And his people never wore armour.
Dende tried to struggle, to get his body moving away from this place, but was faced with utter failure. His arms and legs only moved the merest fractions of an inch, and weak straining groans forced their way through his lips. Even to his own ears they sounded as though they had been drawn into fine strands, like liquid pouring forth from a watering can.
"I'd hold still if I were you, brat," came a voice from behind him, and Dende could feel that voice from the motion of the carrier's back. "I'm not in the best of moods right now."
Dende obeyed this order, not out of a desire to do so, but because he hadn't enough strength in him to continue his resistance. Perhaps it was best to wait this out until he felt a little healthier again. Though he did wonder what was going on. He and Scargo had been prisoners of the aliens at what he assumed was their only base on the planet, so why would they be moved?
Scargo.
Straining once more, Dende turned his head first in one direction and then the other. He caught sight of no one else, though granted his vision wasn't quite up to snuff at this point. Nevertheless, he imagined that he would have gotten some blurry images, or failing that a few vague sounds from somewhere around him. But there was nothing.
So what did that mean? There were so many possibilities, the most hopeful one being that his younger brother had managed an escape where Dende himself had failed. But there was also the idea of Scargo having been recaptured and taken back to the laboratory of Doctor Gneiss, and the even worse possibility that he had been killed.
Actually, Dende wasn't quite sure which of the latter two was worse.
In any case, this did not change his current situation. His head gradually clearing, Dende now got a vivid picture of wide planes and several bluffs coming up to meet him. To meet him? His carrier must be descending, preparing to make a landing in the middle of nowhere.
This didn't exactly strike him as a good sign, not that much would right now. But the middle of nowhere seemed like quite the awful place to be with a hostile alien in a bad mood.
Dende tumbled off the alien's shoulder, hitting the ground hard and rolling to a stop. The shoulder injury that he had suffered who even knew how long ago acted up on him, the shooting pain reminding him that it had not yet fully healed. He lay still for a moment, quivering; now that the effects of the drug were wearing off, all of his old wounds were reminding him of their existence. Most profound among them were the tear in his left arm and the still hollow on the inside hole in his leg.
"You're not going to die on me, are you brat?" The voice came again, and it was dripping with an even more unpleasant tone than it had held previously. "Have the decency at least to wait until I'm done with you. After that, I might even put you out of your misery."
This got Dende's attention. Done with him? Dende could only imagine what he wanted, and none of his imaginings were good ones. Nor was the second half of the statement. No matter what he did, he was almost certainly going to end up dead. A lose-lose situation. He'd been in those before, and he prayed that he would have the guts to stand up for himself at the least.
Always better to die with one's convictions intact.
Finally, Dende put a hand to his forehead; it was still spinning, trying to send him back into a downward spiral toward unconsciousness. The world seemed to steady a bit, and he pushed himself up on the other hand, drawing his knees up under him. With a final head shake to clear away the lingering traces of fog, Dende lowered his hand and looked up.
He gasped at the sight.
This time, he did see people. Not many of them, but all of them unfriendly and carrying something large and round under one arm. Dende's throat dried at the sight. This could not have happened, not again. The aliens could not have come for them, have found out about them – or at least not have been able to collect them all.
But perhaps his eyes were just deceiving him. He was coming off some powerful drug, and his senses were bound to be at least a little crazy. Plus, he had been under so much stress lately that it probably further tainted his perceptions. He had to be wrong, for he feared that he might lose his sanity if he were correct.
And as the new figures landed, his sanity did indeed try to run away from him, though he somehow managed to keep it reined into his mind. Against all hoping and wishing the same horror that had befallen the old planet was befalling this new one as well. After the first dropped to the ground like a discarded rock, he needed no others to make the proper determination. These were the Dragonballs.
All seven of them.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Spirited Away
It was too bright in here.
Of course, it was too bright just about anywhere someone went on this blasted planet. With no night, the eyes were constantly subjected to the brilliant inferno of the multiple suns that cast their rays upon this world. The concept annoyed Shale to absolutely no end and his current situation was not helping him any.
A bright and cheery sky was a most unsuitable complement to being a prisoner, after all. Not that from outward appearances this place would seem like a prison; the natives did not seem to have any construct of such a vein, at least not in this tiny village. And so he was being held captive in a small house, with multiple round windows that let in the ever so mocking and out of place sunlight.
He shielded his eyes against the light and took a glance out of one of the windows, already knowing what he would see there. And this knowledge was true as a particularly imposing native looked back at him over its shoulder, frowning darkly. With nothing else to do, Shale gave it a malicious smirk and turned his gaze inward again.
The smirk faded as soon as the guard could no longer see him. Didn't these overgrown slugs ever take a break? Every time Shale looked out one of the windows of his prison, he was met with the sight of the green skin and antennae of those with the clear stature of warriors. He wasn't very good at telling them apart by physical appearance – all these warrior types looked just about the same to him – but he got the impression that these were the same ones that had been guarding him from the start. It must have been hours at least, right? Time passed in strange ways here, so he could not be sure. Still, these wretched creatures had to sleep sometime, didn't they?
He tapped his foot impatiently on the floor. This was getting ridiculous. He almost wished that they would just kill him and be done with it. They surely would never just release him; he had attacked their little excuse for a village after all. The thought of spending the rest of his life in this hovel was disgusting beyond words, and he was simply not going to stand for it any longer.
The idea was far too simple, but it was all he had to go on at the moment, and he was more than tired of waiting. If this got him out of here, then that was great. If what it accomplished was finally getting him killed . . . Well, he was willing to accept that if he had to. Truth be told, he barely even cared anymore.
Shale lifted one hand over his head, palm turned skyward. Strenuously, he poured ki into this hand – he had never been good at channelling ki in this manner; flying was so much easier a manipulation than a blast. But he managed it, blue sparks forming around his hand, gradually coalescing into an undersized ball. Sweat poured down his forehead as he tried to concentrate yet more power into that hand, and he brought his other to grasp at the wrist, steadying it while it quivered. The ki ball had to be bigger if he wanted to have any decent shot at this.
It seemed to take a while, but eventually the ball reached a size to his satisfaction – that, and the fact that he was quite sure that he could channel no more power there. With a final, strained breath, he pushed the ball away from his hand.
He was not quite prepared for the rain of whatever material made up the building, and scarcely managed to cover his head as it came down upon him. But this was a moment that he could not afford to waste. The confusion was something he needed to be working in his favour, and if he didn't get moving now, he will have wasted it.
The hole was barely big enough to fly through, though it was serviceable enough; he was able to make it through without much squeezing. Whatever direction the ship was in, he could not quite determine; having been knocked unconscious and moved about had messed with his orientation. But the main point was to escape this village, and so he took off in a random direction.
He didn't get far before the first attack came. At the last second, he was able to duck underneath the punch, only to fall victim to a follow-up kick. Shale didn't bother attempting to counter; he wasn't fool enough to think that such an action wouldn't ruin his chances. Rather, he increased his speed as much as possible.
And yet the attacks did not stop coming. Much as he tried to escape the flying limbs, he could not. Perhaps if he had not used up so much ki in blasting that hole through the ceiling, he would have had more energy to flee. As it was, he could not reach his usual maximum speed.
Blows landed now, few but powerful. Something inside of him snapped at each one. By now, he was really beyond caring; he knew which route this escape attempt had taken, and there were no regrets on his part, even as he felt himself falling toward the ground.
At least there was freedom.
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The chaos was astounding.
Scargo had barely recovered both his wits and his breath after a ki blast had torn a hole in the ground scarcely in front of him by the time the battle was joined. He dared not move from his current position for fear of his own life, but he could recognize the sounds and the occasional sights of battle from back on the old planet when his village had been attacked. Voices carried over one another in what seemed to be a contest of who could yell the loudest . . . limbs thwacked against one another as blows were landed . . . the flashing lights and sizzling of ki blasts made the sky seem like it was on fire . . .
The only constant seemed to be the Dragonballs, sitting ever still, a bastion of solidarity in the raging storms around them. While Scargo had always been fascinated to some degree with the Dragonballs, they had never seemed to have this profoundly mystical aura that they projected now. It was as if they were the centre of the world, and everything around them was too weak to make them stray. For a moment, Scargo's mouth dropped open in wonder.
But eventually, even the centre of the world moved. By what force Scargo did not know, but the four star Dragonball was jarred from its placement and rolled a bit toward him. Scargo carefully crawled forward a little, some logic working through his mind. However mystical the balls might appear, they were not so strong that they could not be broken. If he got ahold of it, perhaps he might be able to protect it, to keep the wishes away from the evil people who sought to use them. It was an appealing prospect, to be a hero, and this prospect overrode the fear that swelled inside him.
He edged closer to the Dragonball, but did not leave the safety of the underside of the ship. Straining, he reached his arm out as far as he could. No luck; his claws didn't even graze the ball's surface. If he seriously wanted to do this, then he would have to leave his hiding spot, if only for a few seconds.
Scargo paused, biting his lip. Go out into the midst of a huge battle? Had he lost his mind? No. He wasn't going to do this. Everyone else here was a warrior, and they could take care of things. They didn't need him. He was just a little kid, so what could he have done anyway? Although . . .
He quit biting his lip, and scooted forward a little more, the front half of his body clearing the edge of the ship. All of the sights and sounds that he had experienced previously came out in full force now, and he cringed, barely resisting the desire to cover his ears. Battles were joined everywhere that he could see, and the occasional body littered the ground, not always one of the aliens. Scargo's throat went dry, and he almost froze, but he avoided it. He had to keep moving if he were to get his hands on the Dragonball.
But before he could continue, a large pair of hands reached down toward him, and he ducked back under the ship, eyes squeezed shut in fright. That was it. He'd been found, and they were surely going to kill him. Memories of his previous death shot through his mind – the brief yet painful surge of heat on his back, and the darkening sensation he'd experienced as he had dropped toward the ground . . .
And yet nothing was happening. Tentatively, Scargo opened one eye, glancing about. There was no pair of huge alien hands in front of him anymore. He put a hand to his racing heart and sighed, though this relief did not last long as something very worrisome popped into his mind, and he stiffened.
The Dragonball wasn't in front of him anymore either.
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He dodged around a flying limb, carelessly whirling about with a backhand fist in response. This blow landed and he performed a half turn in the opposite direction, jabbing his elbow into his opponent's gut with what remained of his momentum.
This move cost him though, as his opponent recovered quickly, slamming a fist into his backside. Limpet tumbled toward the ground for a moment before flipping back into an upright position and launching a ki blast from readied hands. He didn't wait for the blast to complete its trajectory and shot after it, thrusting his fist into the face of his opponent just after the blast struck. Unsurprisingly, his opponent dropped unceremoniously to the ground. Well, that was another one down.
But still so many more to go. He barely managed to duck under a punch that came at him from the side from yet another attacker. Though from appearances he and the other warriors were doing rather well, they were still outnumbered by quite a bit and that was bound to take a toll.
Concentration had never been one of Limpet's strong points, but he focused it all now on his current battle. Other things could wait for later; they were not his concern at the moment, no matter that he wanted them to be.
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He noticed that he was getting dropped to the ground quite frequently today. The overwhelming numbers doubtless had something to do with it, but it was irritating just the same. Still, he was not seriously hurt on any of these occasions – just as well, considering that his ribs had not fully healed from the raid on the village – having the presence of mind to envelop his body in a ki shield before impact. He could easily get up to fight again, and by the look on the faces of his various opponents they were quite confounded by this.
All the better to take them down quickly.
A shocked opponent was also an easy opponent, and Chiton took full advantage of their surprise. A kick here, a punch there, the occasional ki blast . . . He doubted that many of them knew just what hit them before they knew nothing more. All in a day's work, really.
Nonetheless, he knelt on the ground for a few seconds, drawing breath into his body despite sharp protests from his still-injured ribs. The combat was being rather hard on him, and now that he was momentarily free of an opponent, he had the time to gather himself a little bit, to observe the situation around him as he was wont to do.
On an upward glance, he noticed something curious, but before it had time to properly register in his mind, he was faced with a new attacker. Chiton brought his arms up in a block, then waited only an instant before lowering them and driving a fist into his attacker's stomach. Though his opponent staggered, he did not fall and came at him once more.
What Chiton had seen was important – he knew that instinctively – but he had no time to worry about it now. Only when this long battle was finally over.
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He found little challenge in the individual battles here, but when he had to take on more than one enemy at a time, Whelk had a bit more trouble dealing with it. Having to watch from all sides was an impossible task and were he not skilled at sensing ki then it would have put him at a near overwhelming disadvantage. This way, at least, the disadvantage was minimized somewhat.
There was no time to waste upon finesse. All of his blows were hard strikes to the vitals and some of his opponents fell by just one attack. The few that righted themselves as they tumbled through the sky he took out with highly concentrated ki blasts that connected with both them and the ship. And all the while as this happened, he hoped that those blasts did not hit near wherever the children were held. Certainly, the children could be revived once this was over, but Whelk would never recover from the guilt and shame if he discovered that he had brought them to harm.
Whelk flared his ki around him, a brilliant blue-white flame, knocking away all of his present attackers. He paid little attention to their falling bodies, as they showed no signs of gathering themselves before they hit the ground. Rather, he took stock of the battle situation; his vantage point was high above any of the others so that he would not get in the way of other fights and cause unnecessary problems for his comrades. By and large, things seemed to be going rather well. Though outnumbered, his people seemed to have cut down upon that particular disadvantage.
Still, that didn't mean that he couldn't still lend a hand. He angled his flight downward, ready to embroil himself into a battle that one of his fellow warriors seemed to be having a bit of a problem with, but something suddenly more important caught his eye.
Without another thought, he shifted his course toward this sight.
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How was it possible to feel light-headed and heavy headed at the same time?
It was a strange question, but one that Dende found himself pondering as he awakened. The drug that had been forced through his body was still wreaking its havoc and yet at the same time he felt a giddy sensation sweeping over his skull. This was perhaps one of the most unusual experiences that he'd yet had in life – and he was not exactly in short supply of those.
Which brought his attention back to the situation at hand, whatever it was. Perhaps he was undergoing yet another one of Doctor Gneiss' tests? Unpleasant sensations were a matter of course in such a thing. But somehow, it just didn't add up. Exactly how was something that he had not quite figured out yet.
Against the violent protests of his lids, Dende willed his eyes to open. The protests were not entirely unheeded though; he could only manage this halfway before his eyelids seemed to be trying to support a house rather than his vision. Still, this was something, and he dazedly waited for his sight to clear.
Had he the energy, he would have started in shock. No longer was he in the lab of that terrible Doctor Gneiss, being forced into some painful experiment. Rather, unless his sight was deceiving him, he was in the air – no doubt carried by someone as he was certainly in no condition to do any flying of his own. This thought relaxed him a little, and he decided to let himself drift off again. Everything was fine now. He had been rescued . . .
This time, he had the strength to jerk in surprise, his eyes flying open. As they had been sliding shut, Dende had caught a glimpse of his carrier's backside and saw lines that could only indicate the presence of armour.
And his people never wore armour.
Dende tried to struggle, to get his body moving away from this place, but was faced with utter failure. His arms and legs only moved the merest fractions of an inch, and weak straining groans forced their way through his lips. Even to his own ears they sounded as though they had been drawn into fine strands, like liquid pouring forth from a watering can.
"I'd hold still if I were you, brat," came a voice from behind him, and Dende could feel that voice from the motion of the carrier's back. "I'm not in the best of moods right now."
Dende obeyed this order, not out of a desire to do so, but because he hadn't enough strength in him to continue his resistance. Perhaps it was best to wait this out until he felt a little healthier again. Though he did wonder what was going on. He and Scargo had been prisoners of the aliens at what he assumed was their only base on the planet, so why would they be moved?
Scargo.
Straining once more, Dende turned his head first in one direction and then the other. He caught sight of no one else, though granted his vision wasn't quite up to snuff at this point. Nevertheless, he imagined that he would have gotten some blurry images, or failing that a few vague sounds from somewhere around him. But there was nothing.
So what did that mean? There were so many possibilities, the most hopeful one being that his younger brother had managed an escape where Dende himself had failed. But there was also the idea of Scargo having been recaptured and taken back to the laboratory of Doctor Gneiss, and the even worse possibility that he had been killed.
Actually, Dende wasn't quite sure which of the latter two was worse.
In any case, this did not change his current situation. His head gradually clearing, Dende now got a vivid picture of wide planes and several bluffs coming up to meet him. To meet him? His carrier must be descending, preparing to make a landing in the middle of nowhere.
This didn't exactly strike him as a good sign, not that much would right now. But the middle of nowhere seemed like quite the awful place to be with a hostile alien in a bad mood.
Dende tumbled off the alien's shoulder, hitting the ground hard and rolling to a stop. The shoulder injury that he had suffered who even knew how long ago acted up on him, the shooting pain reminding him that it had not yet fully healed. He lay still for a moment, quivering; now that the effects of the drug were wearing off, all of his old wounds were reminding him of their existence. Most profound among them were the tear in his left arm and the still hollow on the inside hole in his leg.
"You're not going to die on me, are you brat?" The voice came again, and it was dripping with an even more unpleasant tone than it had held previously. "Have the decency at least to wait until I'm done with you. After that, I might even put you out of your misery."
This got Dende's attention. Done with him? Dende could only imagine what he wanted, and none of his imaginings were good ones. Nor was the second half of the statement. No matter what he did, he was almost certainly going to end up dead. A lose-lose situation. He'd been in those before, and he prayed that he would have the guts to stand up for himself at the least.
Always better to die with one's convictions intact.
Finally, Dende put a hand to his forehead; it was still spinning, trying to send him back into a downward spiral toward unconsciousness. The world seemed to steady a bit, and he pushed himself up on the other hand, drawing his knees up under him. With a final head shake to clear away the lingering traces of fog, Dende lowered his hand and looked up.
He gasped at the sight.
This time, he did see people. Not many of them, but all of them unfriendly and carrying something large and round under one arm. Dende's throat dried at the sight. This could not have happened, not again. The aliens could not have come for them, have found out about them – or at least not have been able to collect them all.
But perhaps his eyes were just deceiving him. He was coming off some powerful drug, and his senses were bound to be at least a little crazy. Plus, he had been under so much stress lately that it probably further tainted his perceptions. He had to be wrong, for he feared that he might lose his sanity if he were correct.
And as the new figures landed, his sanity did indeed try to run away from him, though he somehow managed to keep it reined into his mind. Against all hoping and wishing the same horror that had befallen the old planet was befalling this new one as well. After the first dropped to the ground like a discarded rock, he needed no others to make the proper determination. These were the Dragonballs.
All seven of them.