Disclaimer: Oh, the world of DBZ! I haven't visited this place in quite a while, as I'm pretty sure you all can tell quite well! I've definitely missed it, my adventures in trying to create my own little version of Dragonball Z I think they left out a little too much of the important drama, but who am I do decide the fate of this world that I create? Well, I write what I know and do my best to make up what I don't. I hope you enjoy the next chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it! Thanks for reading!
Television references "" Talking ''Thinking Telepathy (and Chapter brakes o.O)
Enjoy!
Chapter Ten
Cassie's grip on Tien tightened a bit as she began to realize just how truly afraid she was. It was this irrational fear that came with falling, and what was worse, Cassie didn't dare opening her eyes to see what was actually going on around her.
Tien gave an uncertain grunt, as if he was choking back a comment, uncertain if that was what he was wanting to say and trying to disguise it as a tickle in his throat.
It was her ever tightening grip and her constant trembling that made him concerned that he might not be doing something right, but it was his uncertainty of the situation that made it so that he couldn't speak.
And just when she was on the verge of hyperventilating,
'He, he smells funny.' The thought popped up in her head.
The thought was so spontaneous and absurd that it threw her off guard.
'Eh, what!' her rational side asked in astonishment.
'No, really, he smells' the voice tried again, a little more confident, a little more sure of itself.
Cassie found herself unconsciously taking in a deep breath, concentrating on her sense of smell.
'What are you doing!' the logical part of her brain cried out in disbelief.
Suddenly her logical and her immediate part of her brain remerged at the point the smell hit the sensors. The smell was distinctly male, yet, it smelled of odd things, mainly spices.
'He, does smell rather odd.' The logical thought came.
'See! See! I was right!'
The smell was oddly familiar. Like tai seasoning. Sweet, but spicy. Spicy with the kind of hot that gave off physical heat. Indian? With the cool breeze that came with flying, it took some of the heated edge off the spicy scent and made it almost pleasant.
While her mind worked steadily at this one, odd, task of finding out why this smelled so familiar, her body began to relax. The distraction made her almost calm. It was the sudden jerk and dropping feeling that brought her back to reality. Subconsciously she resumed her clinging, but she accidentally found her nose pressed to Tien's neck. Her brain let off little fireworks of warning, but it was too late.
Tien then let her down slowly, guiding her feet to the ground, his hand still pressed to her back as she found it exceedingly difficult to regain her balance.
"Cassie! Is that you! Thank Kame, you're alright!" Chi-Chi's voice carried to where they were from Roshi's house.
Cassie tried to steady herself in the sand when she noticed Tien's hand had disappeared from her back. She looked up at him, but his eyes were fixed elsewhere, a look of uncomfortable uncertainty on his face. Cassie then turned to look at what he was staring, but before she could get a clear definition of what it was she found her face buried in cloth.
Chi-Chi had pulled her into a tight embrace and was ranting on and on about how 'That Place' was not where girls like Cassie should be. Some thing along the lines of 'delicate flowers and hardened battlefields'. Cassie couldn't hear much above the rustling of cloth and the constant speech without the use of breathing. At some point Chi-Chi dragged Cassie into the house. Cassie caught glimpses of Tien following.
Cassie's head was still swimming when she was at last seated on a couch in front of a coffee table. Cassie sat on the edge of the couch, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes closed. She teetered some, still trying to gather her bearings. She barely had time to react when Chi-Chi grabbed her shoulders and when Cassie opened her eyes, wide with shock, found Chi-Chi's face only inches from her own.
"Are you alright? It doesn't seem that you've heard a word I've said, you poor thing!" Chi-Chi cried, and then suddenly stood up strait.
"I know just the thing! How about I make you some nice, hot soup and you can tell me all about what has happened with my son and my hopeless husband, okay?" Chi-Chi said and without a moment's hesitation she shuffled off into the kitchen.
Cassie suddenly felt her heart sink and a sick feeling begin to wrench its way into her stomach.
'Why do I have the sudden feeling I really don't want a conversation with Chi-Chi over hot soup?' Cassie thought, the light-headedness from the flight turning into a different sort.
"Why, hello there pretty thing!" Roshi seemed to have appeared out of thin air right beside her.
"So nice to see you again!" he said laughing wildly.
Cassie jumped so far that she was practically on the other end of the couch climbing the edge and almost falling off. She suddenly felt dizzy and sick.
'I wonder if this is what you feel like after getting off of a plane.' She wondered, not wanting to think about Roshi.
She relaxed a little and gave a nervous smile.
"Oh, hi Master Roshi. You surprised me!" she said and then gave a small, twitchy laugh.
Roshi then laughed.
"Yeah! That's me! Always givin' a good surprise or two!" Roshi said laughing and rubbed the back of his bold head.
Cassie closed her eyes, they turned into little upside down 'u's as she gave another nervous laugh.
"Never mind the formal stuff, you can just call me," Roshi said and made an attempt to scoot closer to Cassie, when Choutzu jumped into the small space between them and was leaning over the back of the couch.
"Tien!" he cried out happily.
"Tien!" Roshi said in bewilderment, as though he thought Choutzu was trying to finish his sentence for him.
Roshi then turned and saw that Tien was standing behind the couch, his eyes were first intensively staring at Roshi, a slight glare there and then it quickly was diverted to Choutzu. His smile was very brief, but very warm towards Choutzu.
"I've come to bring you back with me." He said flat and to the point.
"Bring me back?" Choutzu asked.
"Yes, we've got to resume our training." Tien said.
Choutzu slouched some on the couch.
"Oh." Choutzu said with some disappointment in his squeaky voice.
Tien seemed slightly taken aback.
"You mean, you don't want to come back with me?" Tien asked, his voice a little too controlled.
Cassie turned a little to be able to look back and forth between Tien and Choutzu without craning her neck. Roshi just looked dumbfounded.
"No! That's not it at all! I'll go anywhere with you Tien!" Choutzu cried out.
"Good, then we should be leaving fairly soon." Tien said, the same expression on his face, but his eyes held some twinkle.
Choutzu laughed and nodded. He then twirled around in the seat and sat down between Roshi and Cassie.
"Did you hear that Master Roshi? Tien and I are going to be resuming our training!" Choutzu said happily.
"Yeah, yeah, I heard." Roshi said, disappointment in his voice, but not over the fact that Choutzu was leaving, but because of the fact that Choutzu was now sitting in between Roshi and Cassie.
"Don't worry! I'll come and visit you again!" Choutzu said, obliviously patting Roshi on the knee.
"Yeah, that's great." Roshi said and gave a disheartened sigh that resulted in the little puff-cloud of anxiety.
Choutzu then looked at Cassie. They looked at each other with the same oddly perplexed look, all blank if it hadn't been for an heir of curiosity.
"HI! My name is Choutzu! I saw you come in first, were you with Tien? What's your name? Where're you from? How do you know Tien?" several more questions came back to back, leaving Cassie unable to know what to do, her eyes turned into little black circles, her mouth was a little cat mouth as she scratched her head and said "um-um" a lot.
"That's enough Choutzu, she and I can explain it all on the trip back to Kame's tower." Tien said.
"You just hold on there one second MISTER! You're not taking this girl ANYWHERE till she's had some nice hot soup and has explained everything to me in COMPLETE DETAIL!" Chi-Chi yelled, suddenly appearing in the doorway of the kitchen and leaving everyone gaping at her, not daring to even move, let alone protest.
Thirty minutes later.
"Are you sure you don't want another bowl." Chi-Chi asked Cassie in a voice that was far beyond being exhausted.
"No, I'm so full! I couldn't eat another bite!" Cassie said as nicely as she could.
'If she asks one more time, I think I'll have to barf all over the table to show just how stuffed I am, even then she might not believe me. And flying afterwards,' just thinking about it made Cassie nauseous.
Little blue lines appeared on Cassie's face as it twisted into something with a horribly potential sickness, but Chi-Chi hardly took notice.
"What has my baby gotten himself involved with? I swear, my husband can be such an instigator, what will I do? What will I do? How, Gohan, my baby, my only sweet, sweet child," Chi-Chi cried softly.
Just went Cassie gratefully thought that Chi-Chi's attention was diverted somewhere far, far away from her, Chi-Chi snapped around grabbed Cassie's shoulders, giving her a slight jerk. Just enough to surprise Cassie into a disturbed frame of mind, the look it apparent on her face.
"And YOU! Practically a daughter, how could you possibly THINK of doing something so reckless!" Chi-Chi said to her.
Now Cassie was taken completely aback.
'Child? Daughter? Me? How, I, uh, oh boy,' Cassie thought, trying to sort everything out in her own head, that's when she caught a glimpse of Tien, with his arms crossed and standing as close to the door as possible.
Choutzu and Roshi seemed to be in conversation and every once and a while they'd through a comment at Tien, when Tien wouldn't respond the other would answer for him. Cassie caught him glancing up at her. He must've been doing it several times, but this time he quickly looked away, a slight blush to his cheeks.
"Um, Chi-Chi, I promise to do my best, I won't go overboard and I'll stop if something's too hard. I'm pretty sure Goku and Gohan will be back soon, you're probably going to be really busy getting ready to have them home for a while right? And Tien's," Cassie didn't get a chance to finish her sentence.
Chi-Chi let her go so abruptly that Cassie stumbled backwards some.
"OH MY GOODNESS! You're right! I need to get ready! Roshi! Take me home right this minute!" Chi-Chi called to him.
"Huh? Right now! But I just," Roshi was taking time to make a futile effort to resist Chi-Chi, and while he and she were doing that, Cassie took this time to walk to Tien.
Cassie walked to Tien, not daring to take her eyes off of Chi-Chi.
"Okay, it should be okay to leave now." She said looking back at Tien.
"Sorry that took so long, I wasn't sure what to do." Cassie said with a nervous smile and laugh.
He looked taken slightly aback then gave a slight smile of uncertainty, but a very friendly one none-the-less.
"I don't think anyone knows what to do when it involves that woman." Tien said as he gave slight chuckle afterwards.
This seemed to completely mystify Cassie, as if she were seeing Tien for the first time. When seeing this he seemed to understand and regain composure.
"We'd better get going, Goku and Gohan should be out of the chamber fairly soon. Choutzu!" he ended by calling Choutzu there.
"Coming!" Choutzu said and then ran to Tien's side.
Cassie looked back as Tien opened the door to step out. Chi-Chi was chucking things at Roshi to pack into her suitcase as he protested, but not too loudly. She then seemed to notice that Cassie was staring at them.
"Oh, don't worry dear! We'll see each other again shortly, don't you fret! Just be careful getting back! And I SWEAR, if anything, and I do many ANYTHING happens to my little Cassie-pie, I'll have your HEAD Tien, GOT IT!" Chi-Chi yelled at him, making him jump.
"Right," Tien said and then saw the glare and slight growl that came with it coming from Chi-Chi.
"I mean, Yes Ma'am!" Tien said, giving a slight bow, before taking Cassie's hand in his, as graceful as a dancer's and then proceeded to guide her out of the house.
'Cassie-pie?' Cassie thought, her mind wurled with such confusion that she let Tien guide her out, giving only an absent wave to Chi-Chi and Roshi as they left.
"Good." Was the last think they heard Chi-Chi say as they closed the door behind them.
Tien let her hand drop and gave a heavy sigh. Without any hesitation, Tien had picked up Cassie with a speed she couldn't react to and before she knew it she was cradled once again in Tien's arms.
"Common Choutzu, let's go." Tien said, his voice suddenly tired, but was forced into it's full luster.
Cassie kept looking at him in wonder.
'They each, have some false facade they all put on, and they only drop it when they're serious. Or is it, that this is the first time I actually noticed?' Cassie thought to herself.
Then she felt shame creep into her head, and with a frown and wavering eyes she looked down at her knees.
'I never noticed because I didn't want to. When I watched Dragonball for the first time, I thought Yamcha was cool, but I guess that was because I kept comparing him to normal people, because that was who he was up against, normal people. But then, I compared him with Goku and,' she thought to herself, feeling even worse then before.
'and, I compared him with Trunks and all other super-type people and found that he couldn't measure up to that, then I guess I didn't think he was so cool any more. And, now, I know them, I feel that was,' Cassie thought and then looked up at Tien.
'so very wrong of me.'
Just before she could think anything else, Tien took off into the air, leaving Cassie's figurative stomach grounded. As Cassie was plastered to Tien, she noticed that there was a chill in the air indicating that night was coming near.
During the whole flight back to Kame's, Choutzu kept asking her questions, and over the wind and her motion sickness, she tried to answer the best she could, though, she couldn't remember the answers all to well, and kept flubbing them up of from time to time. Then, finally, they landed.
Tien sat her wobbly feet on the ground and she then tried to steady herself. Choutzu helped as best as he could at steadying her.
"Cassie!" a distinct masculine voice said and she looked up in time to see Trunks running up to her.
"Trunks, uh, hi." Cassie said, desperately trying to focus.
"What in the world are you doing back here!" he asked.
Before she could answer, another voice intervened.
"It's because she's a stupid girl with a death wish, that's why." The gruff voice said.
Cassie turned to see Piccolo standing not too far from where they were standing. His arms were crossed and he was giving Cassie a stern side-ways glance. Now Cassie was sick to her stomach and with the heat rising, was sick and tired of other things as well.
'Why? WHY! Why can't he just leave me alone? It's not fair, he hasn't picked on anyone else like this!' Cassie thought as tears were threatening to form.
Her eyebrows were lowered and the look on her face was slight anger, confusion and a little of sadness. Her eyes wavered with emotion.
"For once, I think the green man's up to something, the little whelp must be suicidal." Another voice said.
With a quick turn of the head she then saw Vageta leaning on a building not too far away.
"Father?" Trunks said in an almost reprimanding tone.
"Well, it's the truth isn't it? She obviously doesn't have the ability fight off common air sickness, what in the world does she think she can do to help us? Especially since she can't even help herself?" Vageta said with an evil smirk and a slight chuckle.
Cassie stared at Vageta, realizing that the heat that was put there when Piccolo said something was rising so much that it pushed all the nauseous feelings right out the window, and she felt more than balanced.
'Before I knew it, I must've got these feelings for Vageta, these, rival feelings. I feel so angry right now towards him, but it's no anger, it's this determination to prove him wrong, to do better than him, is this what he feels like towards Goku?' Cassie thought as she let the heat she felt rise and rise.
The heat rose from her skin and lapped at it like the ebb and flow of hot water, but this hot water felt like it had tiny volts of electricity. Suddenly something came back to her.
Flashback
She looked down at her watch as the second hand made it's way around. She gave a glance back at the house she shared with her grandparents. The presence was almost ominous. She looked back up at the moon desperately. The seconds counting down in her head till they were no more. Her lungs filled with the cold night air before she put forth her sorrows into words.
"I wish to leave this place! I don't want to be here any more! All this pain and suffering! I want to be in the world were Goku and all the Z Fighters are! I want to be one of them! I want to fly! I want to be strong! I want to be fast! I want to fight! I want to be free! I don't want to be here any more!" she screamed into the heavens as she had done for four times past.
This year was different to her. This year she felt like she stood a chance. She felt like her dreams just might be realized this time. But as she stared into the sky she felt nothing was different. Tears welled in her eyes and then erupted onto her cheeks, down to her chin and onto her chest. Before more could come the harsh night winds came and swept the previous ones away.
Flashback End
'I wished, I wished to be strong, and to be fast, and to fly. I wished,' she thought to herself.
She looked down for a moment and just as Trunks looked about to reach out and touch her as sudden chill ripped its way through her body and all the heat that could be felt in her changed, into something different, something alive, like liquid lightening. Her whole body tingled and she could feel something trying to force its way out.
'Quick!' her logical brain said to her stupefied emotional side.
'Remember what Gohan did to train Vadel.' It said.
'Vadel?' the emotional side replied dumbly.
"Huh?" Trunks said, with his hand paused in midair above her shoulder, an inquisitive look took over his features.
'Yeah, put your hands together like this and,' its said as she absentmindedly rose her hands, placed them slightly apart from one another, curved her fingers like she was holding a ball and concentrated on pulling whatever it was she felt into a center in her hands.
The feeling pulsated then multiplied, then pulsated again. In her excitement she pushed harder, feeling more and more of it actually working.
"Um, Cassie, wha," but before Trunks could finish his sentence, there came a white glow in her hands.
This got the attention of everyone. Vageta looked over, a perplexed look on his face, the same look was on Piccolo and Tien's face. A look of shock was on Trunks' face and Choutzu had the look of a child watching fireworks.
Cassie concentrated some more, the tingling burned a little more then it did before, but since the light was growing, Cassie pushed herself even more. The light formed a small ball and the ball turned slightly blue and began to pulsate larger and larger, but before Cassie could push it even further the burning filling her body was becoming almost unbearable, milliseconds later, before she could react to the heat, she got light-head then numbness filled her body as she collapsed to her knees.
Trunks was suddenly there to catch her, shortly after she hit her knees she felt herself falling backwards. The light had turned into little bubbles of light and made vague popping noises as they disappeared from existence. Cassie then felt suddenly felt a chill flood her entire self.
Her breathing was fast and shallow as she shook all over. She looked up to see that Piccolo was looking over her, the look was shocked concern that quickly went into that of being irritated.
"Stupid girl." He said, his voice and look stern.
At first Vageta looked on in quite awe, or surprise, but then he quickly threw his head back and laughed. The laugh wasn't too kind, it was almost hysterically mocking.
"I was wrong! That girls got more than suicidal tendencies, she's down right psychotic!" Vageta said and laughed some more, as though he could barely contain himself.
Cassie drifted to sleep and heard nothing more than mumbling.
When she finally woke, she could hear Goku's voice loud and clear.
"Pass me another bowl!" he cried happily.
She slowly attempted to sit up. Her body ached, like she'd been working out far too much and had very little sleep. Muscles complained, but they felt toned some, like she'd really been working out. Her head swam, and pangs of pain pricked throughout her skull, like mini-brain-freezes dashing and leaping all through her brain. When she went to lift her arm, it felt as though it weighed a ton on top of the fact that it felt as though it was waking up from being asleep.
It took her a moment to realize that Trunks' coat was slipping off of her. When she was fully sitting up, at least the best she could, she then made an attempt to move her legs by drawing her knees up. She then realized that she was sitting on the steps near the time chamber and that everyone was seated not far from her, their backs turned to her. She slowly regained her basic functions and force herself into standing. The world suddenly tilted and she swayed, but she did manage to regain her balance by forcing her leg to turn lightly and by widening her stance.
Feeling cold, she wrapped Trunks' coat tighter around her and then forced to wobbly-walk her way attentively towards the others.
Goku was the first to look up and see her. He dropped his food and gave a dazzling smile.
"Cassie! You're finally awake! That's great!" he said suddenly standing and ran to her.
"Common! Common! Get something to eat! After doing what you did, it's important to get something in your stomach, or you could make yourself REALLY sick!" Goku said happily and then slowly guided her to the picnic spread.
After he sat her next to Gohan, he sat down next to her. Cassie was deliberately taking slow, deep breaths, almost amazed that she could do it all. Once she felt she was more pulled together, she gave a slow glance at Gohan. In return he gave her a sheepish smile and then began piling food onto a plate. Her attention then went to the food. She realized that she had trouble using quick focus, because it took a moment to see the food properly. That's when a wave of nausea hit her. She let out an involuntary groan. She then looked at Goku, who was stuffing his face.
"What you did was rather amazing, Cassie! Considering that was the first time and all! But you really did over do it a bit! Your body just wasn't up to the strain!" he said and then looked at her.
"You really should eat, I know it must be tough to try it so quickly after all that, but once you get used to it," Goku was saying then helped himself to another mouthful.
Goku then pointed at Gohan. Cassie turned to see that plate of food Gohan was piling up a minute ago was for her. Gohan then put the food in front of her. She twirled her fork in the food. To take her mind off of it she looked around and then back at Goku.
"Where's Vageta?" Cassie asked, noticing he wasn't there.
"Oh, Dad! He went off to train, he was kind of angry that he could only go into the time chamber two times before getting trapped in there for eternity." Trunks said staring down at his lap.
"Oh." Cassie said and then looked back at her food.
"Never mind him! Eat up! I mean it!" Goku said to Cassie.
She looked at him and he looked from her food to her before giving a big smile and nodding happily. Her mouth suddenly felt dry and her stomach like it was full of rocks, hard, pointy, rocks. She swallowed, but it was dry and scratchy. She then picked up a fork full of food and her shaky hand hovered in front of her mouth for several moments. She then realized that everyone was watching her. Trunks, Gohan, Goku, Mr. Po-Po, and even Piccolo.
'Talk about being put on the spot, this is retarded.' Cassie thought and then shoved the food into her mouth.
Suddenly there came a response. A rush of a response. Like she hadn't eaten in a lifetime. Her stomach tightened and saliva became over abundant. It felt as it she'd never tasted food before. Sweet and sour, tingly soba noodles. Suddenly, she couldn't stop herself from eating, she had to try everything. Goku laughed heartily and then went back to his task of eating.
"Gohan, we'd better hurry, before she eats it all!" Goku said said happily.
Gohan gave a happy nod and dashed into the rest of the food. Cassie felt a rush of new energy and found herself back to what she considered normal. She was up to playing with Gohan, pretending to fight over certain foods and laughing and joking.
"What about you Trunks, are you thinking about going into the chamber again?" Goku asked him.
"Eh?" Trunks said looking up from his food, an inquisitive look on his face.
"Oh, no. I don't think it'll do me any good to go back in there." He said, with a slight blush and concentrated on his food.
"Well then, that's great!" Goku said happily as he sat down his eighteenth empty plate.
"Huh? Great Goku?" Trunks said bewildered.
"Yeah! Great! How about you going in with Cassie! Keep an eye on her, train her a bit! What do you say? Would you do it for me?" Goku said putting his hands on his knees and leaning a bit towards Trunks.
"EH!" Trunks proclaimed and leaned back from Goku.
Both Gohan and Piccolo gave him surprised looks and Cassie practically spat out her food.
"Huh!" Cassie said looking at Goku.
"Yep, Trunks will help you get strong Cassie, I'm almost positive of it!" Goku said happily.
'Why do I have a bad feeling about this!' Cassie asked herself, feeling faint once again.
TATAAAAAAAAA! Wow! It's been awhile, hasn't it! 3,4, no almost 5 months, right? WOW! Sorry about that, life defiantly has its twists and turns. A lot has happened. I've moved to another part of the state, quit my job and such. School, School, School, yup, I'm still in school. Well, I have my A.A. now, that's uber fun to tell people, and oh, the shocked looks that come with it! It's almost depressing. It's like they don't think someone like me should have a degree outside the one I got from passing the fifth grade. Oh, well, like I said, life's a little funny like that, pushing it a little further, I'm trying to become a better writer. I really wonder if I've improved. . Oh well, I had a lot of fun writing this chapter and will have even more fun writing the last three! Yup, I'm going to try and sum it up in the last 3 Chapters! Wish me luck, things are definitely going to get very interesting. Until the next time! Ja Ne! Usarea.