Chapter 20

An eerie silence flooded the clearing and all of its surroundings that morning. There were no birds or animals about, which was very odd indeed. Even the nearby waterfall seemed quieter.

Piccolo was the first to awaken, sensing the unusual calm of the clearing. Katrina still resided in his arms, his grasp tighter than what he remembered from the night before. Gohan also must have sensed something was wrong in his sleep for he was using Piccolo's leg as a pillow.

He stared down at the girl in his arms grimly. He rested a gentle hand on her head and smoothed her hair slightly. He sighed deeply. "I'm sorry, Katrina, I really am..."

Katrina awoke and could already tell that she had been moved. She opened her eyes and sat up from the dusty ground. She gazed around and saw that she was surrounded by mountains and a stretching desert. "What happened?" She mumbled, very confused. "Where am I?"

"The saiyans probably won't show much regard for the surroundings, so I moved you here."

Katrina twisted around and saw Piccolo standing behind her. He held out a hand and helped her stand up. "You could have woken me up." Katrina replied.

"I could have, but you probably wouldn't have let me carry you." Piccolo answered with a coy smile.

Katrina blushed lightly. "It depends: would we have been alone?" She took one of his big hands into her own and began tracing his fingers.

Piccolo shook his head. "No, Gohan was awake by the time I decided to move."

"How long have you been awake?"

"Before sunrise. Something just made me stay awake."

Katrina looked up at the sun and noticed that it was about 9:00. She returned her eyes to his concernedly. "You must be tired...do you—?"

But Piccolo interrupted her. "I'll be fine. My nerves are too jumpy to make me feel exhausted." He said with a smile.

Katrina returned it doubtfully. Piccolo could sense it and rested his forehead on hers. He grasped her hand tightly and smiled. "I'm ok."

She stared at him a long time before finally smiling. "Ok." She simply replied. She squeezed his hand gently before releasing it. She turned around and took a few steps to remove the kinks from her joints. She peered over at Gohan, who was huddled against a rock, hugging his knees to his chest.

Piccolo stepped by her side. "I had to tell him, there was no point in keeping it a secret anymore."

"Yeah..." Katrina murmured, still looking at Gohan. He shouldn't be here...he's too young...

It's too late now, they'll be coming in a few hours. He replied. He squeezed her shoulder affectionately, then walked to another part of the area and sat down.

Katrina gulped and grasped the jewel around her neck tightly. A brisk breeze blew by, making some of the sand rise in small clouds around her feet. She turned around to gaze at Piccolo, who sat against a smaller mountain. His eyes were closed, but Katrina could tell that he wasn't under meditation just yet.

She walked over towards him, and as soon as she reached him, he opened his eyes and looked up at her. Without a word spoken between them, he patted his knee and she sat down in his lap. He rested his chin on her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her waist. They both stared off into the distance for some time, neither speaking a word.

The minutes passed slowly into hours, the feeling in the pit of their stomachs growing more painful and unbearable. Katrina tried to hide her discomfort, but Piccolo could sense it easily. He kept his emotions open so she knew that she wasn't the only one.

Katrina turned her head to look down at Piccolo. "Are they going to land here?"

Piccolo shrugged. "Probably not."

"Then how will they find us?"

"Don't worry, they'll have no problem finding us." Piccolo explained. "They have these machines that can locate power levels because they can't sense them like us."

Katrina nodded her head understandingly, but the answer didn't really make her feel better. Piccolo was easily aware of it. "Kat, everything will be fine." He raised his hand and gently cupped her cheek. "I promise..."

She stared down at him with wavering eyes. "Piccolo..." She began leaning downward again, her eyes slowly closing.

Suddenly, a huge gust of wind interrupted them. Their eyes snapped open and they looked at each other fearfully. Katrina quickly stood up off of Piccolo's lap, allowing him to get to his feet.

Katrina and Piccolo stood, staring at the direction of where the wind was coming from. Gohan stood up as well and ran over towards his comrades. He clung to Katrina's leg nervously, also knowing what was going to come in a matter of moments. Piccolo rested a hand on Katrina's shoulder and squeezed it, a silent signal of his presence.

Katrina let out a deep breath that she had been holding in for the past year. "There're coming..."

The city was crowded, as it usually was this time of day. The cars honked but didn't go anywhere; the passing people stared into windows of shops and entered them to browse. The dogs with masters barked at one another while the homeless ones searched the garbage cans in the alleys for any scraps of food.

But no one, during their city routine, happened to look up at the sky. It was a perfect day, so no one really had a reason to. No one except a little girl.

Doing two things at once can be an easy task for most people, but for a seven year old girl, it was like trying to sit still after eating a bowl of sugar. She was walking along, an ice cream cone in one hand, the other holding a big green balloon she had just received. Her mother walked alongside, chatting away to her husband on her cell phone.

The seven year old was having a bit of a problem carrying two things at once, and finally, her balloon slipped out of her hand. She looked up desperately and tried to reach of the renegade green balloon. But in a blink of an eye, it was long gone.

Tears began to flood down her rosy cheeks as she saw her balloon disappear into the blue sky. Her mother told her to quiet down and then she continued to talk of future plans for that evening.

Suddenly, the little girl spotted something in the sky. Something she knew that shouldn't be there. She was just about to leave it alone when she saw a second one next to it. Both were coming down fast. She tugged on her mother's pink dress and pointed to the sky when she got her attention.

The mother looked up at the two dots in the sky and watched with wide blue eyes as they came closer and closer. When she let out her scream, the surrounding people looked up at quickly scattered, not knowing where the objects would fall.

Then the former dots in the sky crashed with a loud and deafening boom. It left a rather large crater in the middle of the street that seemed deep enough to fill it with water and call it a lake.

One by one, the surrounding humans gathered around the crater slowly and cautiously. They peered down at the strange devices and wondered what exactly could be in them. They didn't have to wait long to find out. What appeared to be doors popped out of the spherical UFOs, and a few beeping noises were heard from inside.

The first one to step out was a large, beastly man tightly packed with more muscles than any ordinary human. His eyes were dark and blank, and his head held no hair at all except a black mustache under his wide nose. He wore the most peculiar fashion, clothes that appeared to be armor of some sort and a fur belt. On each of his arms were bands that started from mid-forearm to his wrist with a small piece hooked on his thumb. He wore a strange device on his ear with what looked like a small computer, transparent computer screen with a blue tint. It completely covered his right eye. He easily towered any of the humans by five feet or so and could just as easily crush them with his 500 pounds of muscle.

The second one to come out was a fly compared to the first man. He stood about five feet or so, but his hair added another half a foot to him. His ensemble was similar to the big man's, yet it wasn't exactly the same. His hair was as black as midnight and his skin was lightly tanned, showing that had traveled to many places. His worse white gloves and also had the same device on his ear with a red screen. His was also very muscular, but he was still a tack to the big dog beside him. But something was different about him. His eyes were completely blank, as if capable of showing no emotion at all. There was something darker about him than his partner, and even the humans surrounding the crater could sense that.

The smaller one looked over at his partner with a smirk. "Earth was it? Promising..."

"We should greet the little insects..." The big dog replied, returning the evil grin. Suddenly, he raised his two fingers and the city erupted from below in a huge explosion.

When the smoke cleared, there was nothing left of the city. Everyone and everything was completely wiped out.

All the big one could do was laugh. "Little too warm a greeting, eh Vegeta?"

"End it there, Nappa," The little one replied. "You'll destroy the resale value of this dust ball if you keep messing it up."

"Good point. And before we sell anything, we're going to find those balls that'll get us a wish granted!" Nappa replied.

"Dragon balls, Nappa." Vegeta corrected. "The one who killed Raditz will know where they are. And if it turns out one of those balls was around here, we may have to forget about our wish for eternal life...all because of your stupid greeting!"

"Oops, you're right. I wasn't thinking..."

"When do you ever think?!" Vegeta exclaimed. "Oh never mind, just search for the highest power reading on this planet. He'll have to be the one who killed Raditz, unless it's Kakarrot's son..." Vegeta clicked the button on the machine on his ear. Numbers of a strange language flashed on the screen. Nappa did the same.

"Vegeta, there's something strange here. There are readings over 1000, more than one of them! But how, in a backwater like this...?"

"Don't worry about it." Vegeta said confidently. "They're not our enemies. Just look for the one with the highest reading..." Then the numbers stopped. "There! Three high readings and they're right near each other. Let's go pay our respects, Nappa..."

And like nothing, they took to the air and flew off.

And so the battle begins...