Don't Look At Me Like That
by Moonraker One
NOTES: It's taken me a while to get to this point, but I'm glad to get this chapter going! (Whoever figures out what singer sang the song that this chapter's titled after, wins a Chewie) Without further ado, let's begin...
CHAPTER SIX - Can't Stop This Thing We Started
"Okay, so now that we know that you and your son defeated Cell," Elizabeth interjected, "How come we never knew before that our daughter was one of your kind?" Goku found himself struggling slightly whith a response to that question; after all, there could have been many different occasions that a teenage girl with supernatural powers could come into them, so the best thing he could come up with was based on a wild guess.
"I can't answer that one completely," he replied, "I just guess she never found a big-enough problem to bring out her absolute most power." To his utter amazement, they fully considered his theory to be adequate an explanation. If they had not taken the proverbial pill he gave them, he'd have to reword his take, but their acceptance of his words compelled him to continue. "But the main reason that I'm here is not just to tell you what she is; I'm here to ask if you could allow her to provide us with help."
Niko, Nakia's father, tilted his head slightly; he'd experienced far too many bad situations that arose when a white-skinned man asked him for any sort of "help." He proceeded with caution. "What...sort of help?" he asked, much of his voice tainted with apprehensiveness and doubt.
"The reason that I came here was to tell you that an evil is coming. An evil far greater than Cell could ever be." He was treading on thin ice primarily because he didn't know the true strength of the foe, just vague assumptions and visions of the future, so he found he could probably convince them the most by simply winging it.
"And, let me get this straight; I'm supposed to let my daughter go flying off on a wing and a prayer that she doesn't get killed against this 'evil?!'"
Goku gritted his teeth; he knew when he could not break through a wall of doubt. Merely, he stood up and nodded in admittance that he had lost the debate. "Thank you for your time," he said, and exited their household. The parents of Nakia Lemke reminded him severely of his wife Chi-Chi, and how overprotective she always was of Gohan. Thinking of which, he decided simply it would be best if he returned to the lookout.
In the Room of Spirit and Time, a battle of unbelievable proportions raged on between two very incredible sources of power. Unfortunately for one young man, his opponent vastly outclassed him in both latent power and reserve power, meaning his chances of winning were infinitesimal. Even his years of training with his father (which his opponent lacked), did not set him on even an equal level. As it stood, he knew the only chance he stood of being conscious the following morning lay in a possible surrender. It would not happen, however, because battles with Frieza and the likes of Garlic Junior drilled it into his mind not to surrender unless knocked out or dead. that meant his entire spirit would be funneled into the battle at hand.
-WHOCK-
The loud sound of her knee colliding with his stomach, driving the wind right out of him, echoed through the tiled training area, signaling the complete and utter end to the battle at hand...or did it?
"Grrrrr...yyaaaaahhhhhh!" Nakia found herself pushed back by the surge of power emitting from Gohan. In an instant, he'd funneled a good portion of his extra ki into the area of her primary attack focus, his gut. In order to have enough ki to block her assault, he had to hit a ceiling of power he never believed himself capable of; Super Saiyan Three.
"Wha?!" Nakia had previously seen almost all of Gohan's tactics. She knew his moves better than he did; so how he could be fully capable of the pinnacle of Saiyan power befuddled her. Nevertheless, his hair and missing eyebrows indicated to her she did not hallucinate. A kick to the side of her head that she took while in a state of disbelief awoke her to the battle at hand.
"Now, let's see who keeps the advantage now!" Gohan echoed with newfound confidence. The bad news was, as much power as he'd gained, his reserve was not equal. Ki within him matched her outward burn of energy, but she still could outlast him by a whole hour and forty-five minutes. In the meantime, though, she and he would plow their fists into each other with complete disregard for anything else.
Out into the pouring rain did Niko Lemke dash in pirsuit of the man who'd left mere moments before. He could not imagine what this "Goku" character said as being complete and utter fact, but nevertheless, he wanted to know how the man had achieved full use of his aura. Using one's inner aura as a source of energy outwardly was a technique that very few of even the highest gypsy priests ever mastered, and to find a person that wielded their own soul's power as a weapon would be a rare find indeed.
"Mr. Son! Mr. Son!" he cried, using a newspaper to cover his head as he dashed. He saw the man turn to face him, a self-constructed bubble of ki keeping the rain from falling upon him as he trudged. "Mr. Son!"
"Something I left unsaid?" Goku inquired, wondering why the father of his newest pupil would need anything from him with his welcome worn out in their household.
"No, it's just that," Niko explained, catching his breath. "You...you use your ki as a weapon and a tool. Were you born with this knowledge or were you taught? I've met one man who could do such a thing; he died when I was twelve. He never taught it to anyone for fear of misuse."
"Learned it from Kami-sama," Goku merely said in response.
"Ka...KAMI-SAMA!? GOD OF EARTH, KAMI-SAMA?!"
The response Niko got was a nod.
"I...I have a favor to ask of you; could you please teach me how I could utilize my aura?"
"Let your daughter teach you when she returns," Goku said, turning and leaving. "She's training with my son and myself at the sanctuary where the Kami looks over onto this Earth."
Niko's jaw hung in disbelief; his daughter had told him that a sleepover with a friend had been where she left to go to.
Nakia and Gohan sat on the steps leading out into the battle-scarred area they just went all-out on each other at. Both found themselves marveling secretly at the level of skill the other possessed. Gohan found himself wondering if the teen of bohemian descent had an upper limit to how much ki she could use, and Nakia found herself wondering how very close to her level Gohan was. Neither understood why they were surprised to such an extent, but perfectly rationalized why they performed like they did against the other.
Gohan, secretly stealing glances at the girl beside him, decided to be slightly bolder and steal a kiss. He did not expect much in terms of a response.
He wasn't let down in that expectation: she slapped him hard on his left cheek.
"Perv!" she shrieked, shaking her head. "Why'd you kiss me?"
Grinning like an idiot, he replied, "If someone says you can't have something, take it; my motto of life." He shook his head and began to contemplate the further meaning of why he'd kissed her. Did he really want something more out of it than the cheap thrill he got? Or, was he just turning into Master Roshi very slowly? He looked at her like an animal wounded and prepared to get up to fix himself something to eat.
She grabbed him gently and pulled him closer to her, kissing him audibly on the lips. It left him without an ability to immediately speak.
"Um...uh, why'd you kiss me?"
"Expect the impossible, my motto of life."
"How's it going in there, Piccolo?" Goku asked, making sure his question was heard. The green-skinned warrior just gave him a look.
"Hard to tell for sure," he replied, "but I think Gohan's is getting overwhelmed." Goku snorted; he knew something of this type would happen. Although he had utmost faith in his son, he knew that the girl had far more power than Gohan could hope for. Nonetheless, he knew his son had vastly improved from the time he first started in the chamber a handful of hours ago.
Suddenly, the door swung open. Goku checked the clock above the room; they'd left the chamber a whole half hour early, which meant they still had a couple weeks of inside time to go. Had something happened?
"What's up, Gohan?" asked the hardened warrior. "Tell me how it went after I left the chamber."
With a slightly torn shirt, how Gohan had fared in battle was obvious; what Goku wanted to know was how much skill his son had gained through the bruises he had. "She won, as expected," Gohan predictably answered, "but I think I got more out of it than she did."
"I think we're more than ready for anything that's ahead."
The general consensus was in his favor.
When the door to the Lemkes' household swung open, and Nakia stood at the door with her bag in hand, both parents rushed up to greet her. Having experienced what was said by the man named Goku the night before, they didn't know precisely what to think about anything at hand, so they each approached their daughter with a caution that neither had shown before. None of that mattered, however, as they both threw their arms around her tightly.
"You won't imagine what happened yesterday," her father said. "Some guy named Son Goku showed up at our house trying to say that you were some kind of alien!"
"He was right," she admitted, bringing her tail up into their path of vision. "And, he taught me a lot about fighting."
"Dear lord…"
"Don't worry, dad, mom, he's a really nice guy to get along with. You can trust him before a lot of people we know."
"Is he married?" Nakia almost cringed when she heard her mother's question. Every single time an adult even talked to Nakia, her mother needed to know if they were married; otherwise, in her mind, they weren't trustworthy. "You know I don't trust single men."
"Oh, for christ's sake, he's got a son."
"That's not my question; is he married now?"
"I've never met her, but I believe she exists."
"Oh, that's comforting. Listen, you're not going off to fight any evil."
Nakia let out a loud yell, powering up to prove to them once and for all that what had been said held true. "YOU PEOPLE ARE IMPOSSIBLE!" she shouted, storming up to her room.
Niko and Elizabeth looked at each other. "We do something wrong?"
The following day after school, Gohan decided to walk Nakia home, primarily because he wanted to get to know her a little better. Endless rows of cars and limitless expanses of people who took to their own ambitions crowded the streets and sidewalks of the city. As Gohan asked question after question, trying his utmost to get to know the girl he refused to admit he had a crush on, nothing seemed like it could go wrong.
Until they passed alleyway between complex X1 and X2, that is.
Just an ordinary couple of apartment complexes, and a thin alley between them had the sight of a flash of light emitting. When Gohan and Nakia decided to check it out, they saw nothing less than two figures, one large and the other considerably smaller. What seemed strange was that they appeared to have a strange device, and were scanning the area for something…or someone. A surprising trait was that neither of them had any hair.
"Weird looking pair of goofs," Gohan whispered to Nakia as they hid from view. "Wonder what they're up to." Nakia noticed something Gohan didn't initially.
"What's that strange 'M' on their forehead?" she inquired.
Apparently, the shorter of the two gave the orders of the duo, as became evident when he realized there was little to no chance of them coming across whatever it was they were looking for. "Not gonna find it here, Spopovich, let's go," he calmly commanded. His partner, who seemed to always be on edge, agreed with him and within seconds they both took to the sky, going much too fast for any normal human to make out anything other than a blur. The two watching them, Gohan and Nakia, eagerly took to the sky in hot pursuit.
"I didn't think ordinary people could fly."
"Me neither."
Both of them were correct; most ordinary humans lacked the knowledge of how to utilize their power to its utmost limits, so they didn't know how they could fly. However, since something had happened to these two, special humans, they had this knowledge in addition to an increase in power, although still they would be no match for the z-senshi. Nonetheless, they had confidence in their own abilities, but that simply held up because they hadn't met anyone outside of their circle of allies that had a significant power greater than theirs.
After what seemed like a whole ten minutes of zooming over the ocean, the two mysterious warriors, closely but secretly followed by two of the most powerful z-senshi, arrived at their destination. It didn't seem, to Gohan and Nakia's surprise, like any place that someone would want to go to: all it was was a doorway sticking out of the ground, with a dark tunnel leading down. Both good guys knew these had to work for the evils that were preparing, because both of them were well under a hundred thousand in power.
"Did you find anything, you two?!" screeched a high-pitched, squeaky voice. Gohan and Nakia peered out from behind a rock to take a gander at the source of the bizarre voice, and he seemed to be just weird enough to convince them that he had the whacked-out voice.
The two bowed to this tiny, insect-like vermin. "The people are just so weak," the short human said. "Stabbing them with this doesn't result in any energy; they just die in seconds." Angrily, the short imp kicked up dirt.
"Shit!" he exclaimed. "I can't believe Buu got sealed up on such a miserable planet!"
"Master Babidi," inquired the taller one, "where do you think we can find us some more powerful ki's?"
"There's…there's a Martial Arts tournament on this planet, where the world's greatest champions will be. Surely one of them will provide sufficient power for us to take!"
"You're a genius, Master Babidi," announced a deep, booming presence from within the buried area. Upon standing upon the disturbed ground, his mere presence imposed upon all there, to speak nothing of his voice or power. He looked to his left and right. "However, I do not think we'll have to go as far as the tournament; two large sources of ki seem to have followed you two here." Both Saiyan warriors gulped; their presence had been that obvious?
"Come on out, idiots!" screeched the imp-like Babidi. "Meet your doom in the form of Dabura, the mighty king of demons!"
"Fine!" shouted Nakia, leaping up from behind the rocks. "We'll face your stupid demon king!" Laughter ensued from the bad guys' side, but it quickly silenced when she rocketed her power to Super Saiyan two in a heartbeat. Flying down faster than any of them could see, the two humans under Babidi's control, five white armor-clad servant/warriors, and the demon king himself were on the ground in pools of blood. Not the next instant, she lunged for the imp, Babidi.
"Pa Para Pa-pa!" he shouted, throwing up his hands a moment before her flat hand would have impaled him thoroughly. Immediately, she clutched her head in agony.
"AAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaagggggghhhh!" A perforating scream echoed through the midday wind as red bolts of lightning shot off her frame in every direction.
"NAKIAAAAAAAA!" Gohan didn't have time to predict what was going on; all he knew was action. When she fell to the ground lifeless, he was by her side an instant later. "Speak to me! What happened?!" Gohan collared Babidi. "What'd you do to her, sorcerer!?"
Before he could even plead for his life, a foot struck Gohan in the abdomen, hurtling him several feet from Babidi. He coughed up dirt and looked up at the source of the kick, standing over him; he couldn't believe it.
Nakia was standing there, and she had the 'M' on her forehead.
"Na…Nakia?! What's wrong?"
She had an evil sneer on her face. "You're Kakarot's half-breed," she said, in a frighteningly familiar masculine voice. She snatched him by his collar and hoisted him to his feet. Throwing a punch at her face, she effortlessly grabbed it in midair and viciously kneed him in the gut.
"Why, hello…Brolly," he barked, in between coughing up blood.