Disclaimer: I do not in anyway own Dragonball Z, its characters or whatnots. As I respect and acknowledge the ownership of a piece of text (i.e. DBZ), so do I ask my audience in respecting and acknowledging my own work. (Don't steal other author's work!!) If you like the idea presented in the previous and following chapters, or hate it, I challenge and even encourage you to try your hand at a piece of fiction, but make sure its your own.
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Beyond the Clouded Dawn
By Phoenix Cubed
Chapter 5
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Gohan sighed mightily as he once again shifted the heavy pack in his hands. Dangling several thousand feet in the air, it would certainly not due to drop the over-sized rucksack and all its contents onto the unsuspecting earth below. As much as he was sure the recipient would enjoy the ample bounty he was bringing her, Gohan didn't think pancakes were going to be so much the treat when the food was supposed to be chicken.
No one could be that hungry.
Then again, Gohan thought, Trunks was packing away those meals Chi Chi made for him with the speed and gusto of a half-starved pie-eating contestant. The thought made the demi-human chuckle; Bulma was going to have her hands full feeding Trunks until he finished his latest growth spurt. And though normally she would be helped by generous supplements courtesy the Gohan Shipping Service, Gohan thought it best to let the Briefs be for a few days until Bulma could cool off.
Though in retrospect, it was perhaps a good thing Bulma had lost her temper—she tended to be less observant that way. And more often than not she failed to notice the little things that would get Gohan in even more trouble than he was already in—such as the second rucksack of food Gohan had been toting today. Bulma knew Gohan well enough to know he wasn't about to eat it himself. Awkward questions would have most definitely ensued, and for some reason, Gohan found himself reluctant to talk about the girl from the cliffs. No real reason, no thoughts about it in his mind, simply…a lack of want.
From that thought, it was but a moment before the looming peaks of the Eastern Mountains came into view on the horizon. A patchwork of timber forests blanketed the valley and lower portions of the jutting land formations. Farther up the sun cast shadows off the rocks, lending false pretenses of cave entrances where none existed, while masking the true holes that led deep into the mountains and a large network of underground caverns where it was rumored dragons slept the world away.
Or so went the old rhyme. But those peaks had been pored through, mined, and inhabited long enough for accepted belief to say that no such network of caves could be real. To say nothing of the dragons.
Too bad, though, Gohan thought, veering left towards the cliffs, some well hidden caves would be just the edge I need to find that village.
Soon enough Gohan sailed over the edge of the Cliffs and angled downward in a steady dive. A little less than midway he pulled up and frowned at the rocky face. Now where is that entrance, he hummed.
Deciding to cheat, Gohan spread out his senses and found it surprisingly easy to lock onto the girl from yesterday's ki and let that guide him to the jutting boulders and strange corner crack that hid the cave so well. With a satisfactory grunt, Gohan landed on the small natural platform just on the other side of the rocks and let the cumbersome food sack fall gently to the ground.
"Now for the hard part," he mused, gathering his courage to enter the cave.
The mouth was small and narrow, and Gohan fought the urge to turn sideways and duck as the entrance swallowed him whole and left him standing in the stomach of darkness. Instantly his hearing became that much more sensitive and his fighter's senses fanned out to search for other energy signatures. He found one, as he expected, but it was much weaker than he remembered, and distinctly out of focus. He wondered why—
"Hyaa!" The attack came from his left as the once fuzzy ki snapped into sharp focus. A swift rounded kick to his chest as well as a hard elbow to his gut caught Gohan off guard. Grunting in surprise, he staggered back away from the onslaught only to trip over a goodly-sized rock hiding in the shadows on the cave floor.
"Oof!" He said on landing. The ground was hard and the wall even harder on his head as it snapped back to crack against the side of the cave. "Ow!"
"Serves you right!" Came the righteous voice he recognized from yesterday. He wondered if this type of mood was perpetual for the girl.
"Bastard! Scum!" Hard footsteps pounded toward him "Dirty Android!" The fists flew straight at him, but this time Gohan was oriented and had had quite enough.
The fist landed neatly in his palm, and he as gently as possible closed around the punch, holding the hand in a light, unbreakable grip.
"Hello again to you, too, Miss Videl." Gohan sounded out, his voice a mixture of strain and blatant amusement.
She gasped, "Gohan?" Her hand went limp in his own, causing him to release her as he eased back against the cave wall. "The very same," he smiled in the dark, trying to reassure her as he watched her silhouette back away in shock.
"How—how did you, what're you—you jerk!" Videl's stuttering surprise quickly turned to anger as her voice echoed in the dark. "What do you think you're doing! Sneaking in here like that! I could have seriously hurt you, you know!"
"Those punches were very skilled," Gohan admitted, neatly sidestepping the matter of Videl's deflected fist. "But I wasn't worried."
"And why was that?" Videl's temper continued on the rise, "I'm an accomplished martial artist, I'll have you know!"
"I noticed!" Gohan yelped as Videl menaced him with yet another handful of knuckles beneath his nose. He held up his hands as a gesture of peace in an effort to ward her off, "very accomplished!"
"Why then, Mr. Fly Boy," Videl continued, "being accomplished and very able to kick your butt, should I not pound you for coming into my home without an invitation?"
"Because I have a good reason to be here?" He ventured, trying to keep his voice below a squawk.
"Which would be?"
"I, uh, brought you some more food?"
"Really?" Videl's voice suddenly brightened, "oh, all right then."
Gohan watched in amazement as the menacing aura surrounding the young woman suddenly vanished in the dim cave. That her demeanor became distinctly lamblike after the lionish attitude she had shown just a moment before gave great insight as to the depths of her hunger.
A moment later and Gohan became aware of movement in the cave. He heard the shuffle of hesitant footsteps and the clang of glass on metal. Then there was a click and the demi-human had to shield his eyes as light sprung into the cave and attacked his eyes.
He squinted, then rubbed his closed eyelids, encouraging them to open and take his first look at the makeshift Satan residence.
It was an almost comfortable place, Gohan decided after his eyes adjusted. The total area livable in the cave was small, half the size of his own room at his mother's house. A traditional futon was rolled in the corner with western pillows and thick quilts piled on top. Next to it was a low bench doubling as a table and upon it was placed an old ceramic lamp, a few books and papers, trophies of various sizes, and a well-polished picture frame that beheld two people behind a cracked pane of glass.
Gohan glanced at the Capsule Corporation logo on the side of the camping stove and portable sink, "nice appliances," he said. "Those capsules are hard to come by these days."
"I didn't steal them, if that's what you're saying." She growled, hands clenching at her sides.
"No, no!" Gohan hastened, "I'm just saying—"
"I know they're rare," she retorted, calming a bit. "We bought them a long time ago, before…" The cave became too quiet in the wake of Videl's trailing voice, and Gohan wondered what she was thinking about before her voice picked up again. "Anyway, you said you brought food, right?"
"What?" Gohan confirmed, "oh yeah. Right outside, I'll go get it." Standing up, Gohan smiled in the dim light and headed towards the entrance.
"You left it outside?" She snorted, "You'll be lucky if the birds haven't gotten to it."
"It'll be fine," he assured her, hoping it was true.
Videl snorted again as she followed him out, pausing in her critique to ask, "any more crepes, by chance?"
"Maybe," Gohan replied, not bothering to muffle his smile, "though I'm not really sure."
"So you brought food, but you don't know what kind," Videl raised her eyebrow. "Some chef you are."
"Hey, I'm just the delivery boy," he replied, stepping outside to retrieve the satchel. "Mom made me a lunch, but I thought you could use it more."
As he hefted the sack over his shoulder, Videl's other eyebrow rose, putting the two in danger of colliding with her hairline. "That's a lunch? That could feed a family of three for a month!"
"Well," he grinned, "I'm a big eater!"
"More like a black hole if you're eating all that."
Gohan laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his head, carrying the food inside as he did. Depositing the sack in the middle of the cave, he backed away from it as an invitation to Videl and her now audibly growling stomach.
"Dig in," he smiled, "all fresh this morning."
Videl needed no second bidding. Ravenous and having already worked off the meat crepes from the day before, she wouldn't have been able to keep herself from the promise of a full stomach even if she knew the meal was poisoned. But on the rationale that she had survived the meat crepes, and the chicken she had just pulled from the sack smelled even better than those, Videl had no choice but to trust the strange flying man and the food in his Santa Clause sack.
And so, for a time all in the cave remained silent as Gohan sat back against the rolled futon and watched Videl make her way through her first substantial meal in almost two weeks.
Very substantial.
"Good lord, another chicken?" Videl exclaimed, having already tackled half of its sack mate, "How many of these are there?"
"Probably not too many more," Gohan replied, hoping it was true. Mom really outdid herself this time.
"You mean there are more?" Videl couldn't believe her ears. Deciding to find out for herself, she promptly disappeared into the sack to search out the truth. Muffled counting followed her disappearance, and soon could be heard "—two, three, four more chickens!" Videl came out of the bag and produced the offending meat, displaying it before a not-so-shocked Gohan.
"Actually," Gohan surveyed the birds, "I think those two are turkeys."
Videl stared at him.
"Well see," he reasoned, "they're larger than the others and the skin is a different color—" he broke off when he noticed Videl still staring, "what?"
"You've missed the point, I think." Videl drawled, her voice a mixture of incredulity and irritation. "You said your mother packed you lunch! This—" Videl gesticulated wildly "—is the celebratory rations of a government victory army!'
Gohan took a moment to try and figure out what exactly it was that Videl had just said, but failed miserably in his attempt. "What did you say?"
"I don't know!" She exclaimed, "But what I do know," Videl gestured grandly with the turkeys in hand, "is that this is a hell of a lot of food for anyone's mom to make for a simple lunch!" Then her eyes narrowed, "unless it really wasn't made for just a lunch."
"Uh…I don't know what you mean?" Gohan was feeling another bit of nervousness flitting through his stomach as he shrank back from the investigative glow in the young woman's eyes. It reminded him of the many times Chi Chi had interrogated him as to the whereabouts of his Hiya Dragon.
"It means that maybe your mother packed all this food for some other reason than stuffing your gut," she replied. "You don't look like the type who knows his way around the kitchen. Probably your mother packed you extra so that when you went home, you'd have food in your fridge for a while." Videl looked inquiringly at her guest. "Well?"
"Actually," Gohan professed, "I live with my mom."
"Packed for an away trip?"
"She wants me back for breakfast tomorrow morning."
Videl's eye twitched, "a twenty something year old man has a curfew set by his mommy. Right."
Gohan felt a twinge of annoyance tweak his pride, "I seem to remember someone refusing to leave the cave because her daddy told her not to…"
"That's different!"
"How?" Gohan asked, not bothering to hide his exasperation.
"Because it is!" She told him, finality in her voice. "Now, if it wasn't because you live so far away, or that you are on a trip, and you have all this food that you just so happened to have extra of; then there's only one plausible explanation."
Gohan once again had to wonder where in the world the woman was going with her line of thought and why exactly she felt so vindictive towards the reasoning. The nervousness in his stomach rose again as a notion struck him. Videl still did not trust him, most likely she was trying to find some way to pin the android label on him, or even—oh no! What if she suspected something closer to the truth! If she guessed him an alien—she was panicked enough as it was over something created on Earth, there'd be no predicting her reaction if she found out the truth. His nerves frayed further and the first vestiges of panic set in as Videl opened her mouth to pronounce judgment on the intentions of his visit.
"You think I'm a charity case!"
The resulting conclusion of logic was enough to make Gohan topple sideways in a comical display of surprise. "Huh?"
"That's it, isn't it!" She glowered at him. "Poor Videl, stuck in a cave and too dumb to be able to find a way down and get her own food. Well I have news for you, mister: Satan Videl is no charity case!"
"But I didn't think that—"
"HA!" The girl guffawed, stuffing the birds back into the sack. "Likely story! And what else am I supposed to believe, Mr. Would-be-Hero?"
"But I'm not a—"
"You certainly aren't!" Videl was tying up the sack now and beginning to drag it towards the cave entrance. "Just because you gave me a little help yesterday and I told you a little bit about me doesn't mean you can just waltz into my life and think to fix everything and take care of me!"
"Whoa, whoa! Miss Videl you're—"
"Exactly right!" She threw at him. Gohan stood bewildered in the middle of the cave while he watched Videl duck through the entry way and lug out the sack. "You got another thing coming if you think I'm some sappy damsel in distress, mister. I am Satan Videl, daughter of the Satan Hercule, next Martial Arts World Champion; strongest man in the world!"
She was outside the cave now, standing tall with the sack over her shoulder. She threw it to the ground and began hauling the food out and throwing chickens and turkeys and pies and sandwiches over the side. "I am not a weakling that needs rescuing; I am not a little girl to be protected, I am not, am not a charity case! I am—" a shadow swept over the cliff cave entrance and a great squall filled the air. A medium sized pteradon, watching from higher atop the Cliffside, had seen and smelled the sudden appearance of food and unable to resist, came thundering down the rock face. At the last moment Gohan heard more than he saw the snap of flaring wings and the scrape of enamel on rock as the pteradon's claws grabbed the food, the sack, and Videl, all in one fell swoop.
Gohan heard Videl scream and then curse the bird roundly even as he ran out of the cave and jumped into the air after the flying dino. Zooming upwards he watched, bemused, as the girl attempted to turn in the pteradon's grip and kick the raptor's feet. But the flyer had thick protective skin, and even a strong human such as Videl was no match for the driving prospect of the first good meal the pteradon would be having in a very long time.
Sailing past the dinosaur, Gohan got a good look at the raptor and was amazed at her size. Not many dinos survived these days to grow as big as this one was; especially those unfortunate enough to have to spend time in the sky. He matched his speed to the pteradon's, flying close enough to see the pebbled skin and pins of primitive feathers around the eye. Close enough to see his reflection in her pupil, and her fear of him and what he might do. It was her meal! The eyes dilated and the raptor snapped her head back as her beak came around to peck at him. Gohan ducked away and gave her some distance. Really, it would be a shame to have to harm her just because she was trying to survive as much as he or Videl…
"Hey you, Fly Boy!" An angry yell pierced Gohan's speculations, "you gonna get this bird off me or just play tag with it?"
Gohan bit back the urge to roll his eyes and dipped his shoulder to come up by the pteradon's claws and an irate human. "You know, for someone claiming not to need any help, you sure do demand a lot."
"I didn't say help me!" Videl snapped, somehow managing to be heard over the whipping wind produced from the fast flying of the desperate predator. "I said get this thing offa me—urk!"
The pteradon, not comfortable with another flyer so close to her, turned in the air again to snap at Gohan, this time too much an obvious threat to her potential meal to ignore. Her strike was hard enough that her entire body spun to follow her mid-air peck, taking Videl for a stomach twisting spin. Gohan was forced to veer away once more, but he used to the chance to fly in front of the bird at such a fast pace that he disrupted the air current she was using to lift her gargantuan body into the air. The raptor's wings flailed for a moment as the creature struggled to maintain her balance in the unexpected gust of wind the demi-human created. Gohan thought that the distraction would be enough and moved fast again to fly back to her feet to where a now decidedly green faced Videl hung in the pteradon's grip.
Gohan grabbed the clutched foot and let the raptor pull him along as he used his other hand to grab Videl and begin pulling her out of the pteradon's grip. "Miss Videl, are you all right?"
"I'm—hey, watch out!"
The pteradon managed to catch herself long enough to realize her meal was getting away from her, and so with her free talons she tried to scrape away the unwanted parasite hanging onto her. Too preoccupied with loosing Videl and maintaining his balance in the slipstream of the bird's underbelly, Gohan didn't react fast enough to Videl's warning. A searing sensation swept down his back as eight-inch claws sliced his skin through his gi.
Instinct forced Gohan to cry out in surprise and react to protect himself. Immediately his ki dropped out and he fell towards the ground as his body got over a painful shock to his system.
Stupid, he swore at himself. The demi-saiyan shook himself off and shot upwards back towards the raptor just in time to hear Videl give a frightened yelp. He had managed to pull her out of the pteradon's grip some, but that left her lower half in the raptor's curled feet and her torso hanging a good few hundred yards off the ground. Gohan noted that she'd had the good sense to wriggle only enough to find a way to brace her arms against her captor's legs, preventing her from slipping and falling to her death.
Smart girl, he thought, now lets see what I can do.
Focusing, Gohan pulled some ki through his body and out of his hands, aiming unfocused blasts around the pteradon. Like the snaps firecrackers he had once played with as a kid, the blasts hit the wings with explosions that were small but smarted enough to make the giant flyer swing away. Gohan continued the barrage, but the bird's tenacity held out, and if anything, her grip became stronger. Videl testified for the bird's renewed energy to fight with angry screams and curses, not all aimed at the bird.
"Damnit, you ass! Watch where you're aiming! You're trying to kill me, I know it!"
But Gohan had no time to reply, his ki blasts had caused the pteradon to change her flight path and send her careening through a gauntlet of jagged mountain peaks that bordered the Eastern Range. A series of jagged spikes and outcroppings suspended thousands of feet up greeted the racers as the pteradon screamed and folded her wings to dive below a half collapsed natural arc. Gohan swore at the sudden raised level of danger and followed close behind the bird. Trying to fly close to the pteradon became a near impossibility as her flapping wings hit the mountainsides and caused a hail of small rocks to fly into him and bounce off his face and shoulders. The hunt was becoming dangerous, Gohan realized, and it needed to end. One particularly large piece of debris came at Gohan and forced him to fly against the mountainside, pushing gravel into his already scraped back. Gritting his teeth, he decided on his next course of action.
"Hey, what're you doing?" Videl yelled out as she watched the flying man stop short before shooting high in the sky. "You're leaving?"
Her question was answered when she watched a visible stream of energy—she thought it energy but she couldn't be quite sure, she'd never seen anything like it—swing in a gigantic arc around the bird before diving down into the mountain valley a ways ahead. Then, just as the pteradon went flying past, Gohan reemerged, and flying up like a rocket he slammed into the raptor's belly.
All motion stopped as the pteradon's thirty-foot body froze. Gohan had knocked the breath and ability out of the bird. The pteradon krie'd and her body gave a great shudder as her muscles were forced to relax in the motions of the unconscious state. The raptor's wings collapsed, her head fell and her claws opened—
Videl gave a yelp but possessed the good sense to grab hold of the curled talons that a moment ago had a firm grip on her. In his mind Gohan again reaffirmed his positive assessment of her intelligence as he reached over and grabbed her hand.
"Hold on," he said, his voice tight. He knew his grip on her hand was too hard; though she refused to scream her face was pinched and her mouth was drawn, but she was safe with him and he knew her type well enough to know that she'd never show a weakness to strangers. Turning his attention back to the dinosaur, he grunted and flexed his punching arm enough to send the pteradon arcing into the air. As it fell, he grabbed the creature's tail but let the momentum of the downward movement and the stiff breeze he was now able to notice carry them sideways and close to the mountains.
Teeth grit with determination and the sudden acute awareness of a pain that grew stronger with every beat of his heart, Gohan eased the pteradon against a ledge jutting out from a peak then flew a small ways beyond that to a large, secure boulder.
Videl gave an unlady-like grunt as he released her hand and let her fall three feet to solid ground. Then he let himself fall. Releasing his energy he tumbled to the girl's feet. His hearing was failing him as he thought he heard Videl mutter something that sounded like concern. His field of vision shrank and his world became only the immediate sight of her lower body, and then nothing.
Wow, he thought, growing number and number. She's got nice legs.
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