Chapter 9 – Pegasus's help

The instant translocation didn't work out exactly as planned but at least it more or less did the trick. After they had gone through the transportation, they found themselves floating in the air right next to Karin-sama's tower. Haruka was still sitting on the table, keeping an eye on Hotaru who was quite obviously a little messed up.

"Are we supposed to be here?" Goten asked his father.

"Almost; I wanted to go to Dende's," Goku replied. "Let's get up there."

"Now I get it… you want to use the Hyperbolic Time Chamber," Vegeta said. "Not a bad idea but I hope you remember that it was easy for demon Buu to get out of it."

"I told you it wasn't the safest place," Goku agreed, "but I don't have anything else to come out with. I know the passage was broken in the meantime but I also know that Dende fixed it. We'll put Hotaru there and then we have some time to figure out what to do with those other two urgent things."

Dende gladly agreed to put Hotaru in the chamber. "It may be a bit lonely in there and the air is most likely bad for her… not to mention the gravity… but that really is the only thing we can do. This way."

Haruka looked into Hotaru's empty eyes as she led her down the hallway towards the chamber door. "I don't think she really cares about the loneliness or anything else," she said. "and as the creatures come out, being alone will be her smallest problem."

"A day out here will last a year in there," Dende reminded them all, "so the faster you're able to get her out, the better for her. Otherwise she may lose her mind in there."

Haruka poked the small golden halo above Hotaru's head. It gave a quiet tune. "She's already dead and almost," she waved her hand in front of Hotaru's eyes; the girl didn't even blink. "well, completely out in her own little world. I just hope something won't take her mind over while she's in there."

"I don't think it can be done any more," Vegeta said. "She felt so bad after realizing that she can't protect us from that portal in her mind. I'm sure that whenever something tries to attack her mind now, she gives the angriest possible reaction there is. And I'd say that this girl's mental powers are enormous."

Dende opened the door to the chamber and they saw a small room with an endless white plain behind it. Haruka gently pushed Hotaru in and they closed the door.

"Several hours have already passed for her," Goku said. "I wouldn't be surprised if those things would be out there for now. We should go home to discuss things with the girls and Gohan and there's no time to waste."

"Honestly, that's a bit too much for me for one lousy morning," Bulma announced. "Hotaru's in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, the demons are already out there and Goku found his father? And most importantly… what have you done to my table?"

Vegeta sighed. "Forget about your stupid table already. The Dead Zone inhabitants aren't the biggest problems any more… at least for now. We need to summon the Dragonballs and annihilate that demon. And the sooner, the better."

The woman frowned. "Well, we can't do anything about the Dragonballs yet. There's still one and a half weeks to go until they have regained their powers. Until then, well, all we can do is to wait and hope that this thing won't return too early."

Haruka snorted and slammed her fist onto the table. "Always with the sitting and waiting. Always! Honestly, it just won't do. If you ask me, we need to contact that Namek and tell them to use their Dragonballs, no matter what the consequences."

"The consequences would be that you'll end up in the prison of the Afterworld, playing checkers with good old Freeza," Trunks remarked. The girl groaned.

"Couldn't care less."

"Or," Vegeta suddenly said; everyone turned to look at him, "we could try and find the demon and destroy it by ourselves."

"Easy for you to say," Goku frowned. "Remember our last fight?"

"So this time we need to use different tactics. No big deal. If that, who was it again, Sailor Pluto was able to turn its powers against it, I don't see any reason why we couldn't." the Saiyan prince claimed.

"I'll give you a reason," Michiru said with a frown. "Setsuna, or Pluto, if you like it that way, is extremely wise and powerful. She was born when the Time was born. You can be all the Saiyan warrior you want to be but against her powers…" She shook her head. "Don't even try to compare."

"Then we'll ask her to help," Goten said. Michiru sighed and shook her head.

"She has already done everything she can. The demon can't be tricked twice. At least not the same way. Haruka, what's that in your back pocket?"

Haruka blinked and looked over her shoulder to see the flower bouquet Dabra had given her. "Just a little something I got earlier today," she replied with a smirk.

"Who gave it?" Michiru persisted.

"A secret admirer…" Haruka laughed and turned around to leave the kitchen. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment."

"With whom? Or is this a secret too, like with Michiru?" Gohan asked.

"No, it's not a secret." They could still hear Haruka's voice as the girl headed to her room. "I need to talk to Pegasus."

"And I was hoping that you got rid of that demon once and for all," Pegasus sighed after hearing the story. He was standing in the middle of Haruka's room, thoughtfully gnawing on the curtain as the rest of the house's inhabitants were staring at him on the doorway. Haruka, sitting on her bed and waiting for Pegasus's reaction, now scratched her head.

"I was actually hoping that you're able to give us some helpful information," she said.

The winged unicorn let the curtain go and turned his head to look at Haruka. "I can't give you more info than you already know. Materialistic things like the Saiyans' powers and your Space Sword, not to mention the powers of other Sailor Soldiers, they won't harm it."

Haruka raised her hand and the Space Sword appeared. She pulled it out of its sheathe and looked at its dark red energy blade. "Materialistic, you say?"

"It is," Pegasus nodded. "Energy is materialistic. You guys always fight with energy. True, it's more powerful than those man-made weapons but they still don't overcome the power of other dimensions. Saturn was different, she fought with a lot more than simple energy," he added with a frown, "but you can't count on her any more."

The Space Sword disappeared again. "Can't you bring her out from the Hyperbolic Time Chamber?" the girl asked. Pegasus shook his head.

"The creatures that have broken out in there by now would kill me in the matter of seconds."

"So we can't fight with energy," Vegeta said. "To sum all this pointless babble up, what do we need to fight with?"

Pegasus smiled. "In one word? Magic."

Haruka snorted, stood up and went to the window. "By all means, this story is turning into a Harry Potter nightmare!" She rolled her eyes. "Why don't we just call the Fairy Queen or something to save the day?"

"Well, you wanted info, I gave you info," Pegasus grinned slightly. "And that idea of yours, about the Dragonballs, is actually very good… if you were able to use it a bit earlier. But I'm afraid that the demon will return before the crystal balls regain their powers. After all, it didn't lose that much energy. In short, you need to think of some other way to trick it again to win more time until you get to use the Dragonballs. Is that a flower bouquet in your back pocket?"

Haruka took a deep breath. "What's wrong with you people? Geez, if I want to wear flowers in my back pocket, I have the right to do so, or what? Here," she grabbed the bouquet and stuck it behind Pegasus's ear, "you can keep it."

Trunks and Goten squeaked and tried to act like they weren't trying to hold back laughter. But Pegasus seemed surprised. He pushed his head up, trying to sniff the flowers.

"Are these… from the Heaven?" he asked with great surprise, smelling the delicate, sweet fragrance.

Haruka was still pouting. "Yeah. So?"

Pegasus grinned and shook his head, letting the flowers fall on the floor. "These belong to you. I'm not going to wonder about how you got these but I can tell you, these are far more valuable than you think. The flowers of Heaven can't be underestimated. Besides, the fact that you were able to bring them out of the Afterworld shows that they'll bring you luck." He grabbed the bouquet with his teeth and stuck them back into Haruka's back pocket. "Don't lose them. After all, they're from the Heaven."

Haruka blinked, frowning at Pegasus's sharp golden horn that had been dangerously close to her butt. "Fine, fine. I'll keep the weed. Now, would you tell us how to trick that fistful of smoke? The Dragonballs are out of the question and unless you know some fairy queens, I don't see any other way."

"Well, there's always…" Pegasus hesitated, "the Golden Crystal."

"The one in your horn?" Michiru asked in surprise. Pegasus nodded. "But we can't take the crystal; you need it in your world!"

"Is his world more important than ours?" Bulma asked.

Michiru and Haruka both frowned. "His world is the world of dreams."

Bulma blinked. "Oh…"

"Then it's a dead circle. We can't take your crystal since without it the world of dreams would collapse. If we won't use the crystal, everything will be destroyed." Haruka sat back on the bed. "This is growing over my head…" She looked at Pegasus. "Unless you come and fight for us. You can use the crystal without having to remove it."

Pegasus hesitated again. "I'm not sure… The Golden Crystal may not be that powerful and things are unstable enough out there without me hopping back and forth between those two worlds. I should get going anyway. But I'll try and give my best to work things out in Elysion by the time the demon returns. I can't promise anything though."

"There's one thing you can and will promise to do," Michiru said in a sharp voice. "I know you're able to do it. Find out where the demon is and what it's up to. We must know when, where and how it will return. And don't even try to argue with me here," she added.

Pegasus sighed, nodded, raised his wings and disappeared, leaving nothing but some glitter behind. Haruka lied down on the bed.

"And we're back sitting and waiting," she said with a frown, looking at the ceiling. "Is it dinnertime yet?"

But Pegasus worked faster than they had expected. In the evening when they had all gathered in the living room to watch TV, something flashed behind the window and the unicorn flew in through it. Luckily the window was opened and big enough.

"Found it," he announced, landing in front of the TV. Vegeta grabbed the remote and turned the set off.

"Shoot," he said.

"It escaped into nightmares," Pegasus explained. "Quite predictable, therefore I was able to find it so fast. There's a city on this planet that's suffering form a real nightmare epidemic at the moment. It's clever enough to take only little energy at a time. The people think that they feel tired in the morning because they didn't sleep well last night; actually it's because of lost energy. Drained energy, in fact."

"That makes no sense," Goku said in surprise. "It eats energy but energy doesn't harm it."

"If someone throws an apple pie at you, will it harm you?" Pegasus asked back.

Goku scratched his head. "Well, if it's a really, really, really big apple pie…"

"So, if we'd attack it with a lot of energy…" Goten muttered. Pegasus frowned.

"You're using your own three-dimensional theory. We're talking about a dream demon here."

"When will it be powerful enough to come back?" Michiru demanded. Pegasus slowly shook his head.

"There's no telling. Maybe a week, maybe a month, once it decides to make a very fast and surprising comeback, it can also use one single night to drain everything out of that city and return with a blast. I'd predict the last variant. After all, it must know that I'm in touch with you guys and right now it's pretty obviously on my territory."

"Can't you isolate it in any way?" Gohan asked.

Pegasus thought for a moment. "I can try. But it wouldn't end well as it will definitely try to break loose and that would seriously harm all the people it's right now in contact with."

"Try it anyway," Vegeta said. "The Dragonballs will heal anything that demon may do to them. Right now time is our enemy and we need to use everything we can to win some time."

Trunks hopped up. "But Sailor Pluto watches after time! She can't be our enemy! She can freeze time; can't she freeze the demon for a week and a half?"

"Risking her life and the whole Space and Time? As the very last alternative, we can try that. But that may put and end to everything we know," Haruka warned him.

"So… try to find out when exactly it's planning to return," Michiru told Pegasus. "Even if you're able to warn us five minutes before its returning, it would still help. Friday the 13th is out of the question now; I don't think there are other magical dates when it can return with, you know," she rolled her eyes, "style."

Pegasus nodded. "I don't think it will be too happy to contact me but I can try."

The Saiyan prince snarled. "That has got to be the luckiest demon alive. We can't use the Dragonballs, we can't kick its butt and we can't freeze it in time. What can we do, if I may ask?"

"Generally all you can do is to strengthen your mind to keep the demon away from your dreams as long as possible, like Hotaru did," Pegasus said thoughtfully. "But that would take days and days of severe…"

"Training," Bulma and Chichi remarked grimly as a wide grin appeared on Vegeta's face. The Saiyan turned around and left the room.

"I'll show up for breakfast," he said over his shoulder. "Trunks, Gohan, Goten, I suggest you to train as well. Children's minds are rather weak and you'd be easy to defeat for it."

"Hey…" Goten argued but Gohan stopped him. "He's right, you know. We should train. Training your mind is always harder than training your body."

His little brother snorted, sighed and nodded. The three left the room after Vegeta and Goku followed them as well.

Haruka looked at Pegasus. "And you really think that training will help them in such short time?"

The winged unicorn shook his head. "No. Although they're full of surprises and I'd be glad if they'd really manage to learn to close their minds for that demon. It's not very likely to happen but at least they have the feeling that they can do something about it."

Haruka frowned. "What about us then?"

"Just wait. I'll try to come when it's time and fight for you," Pegasus promised. "And I'll try to talk Pluto into it as well. She could help a lot." He stretched his wings and flew out of the window.

"Well, that was reassuring," Michiru commented. Haruka sighed, sat down and grabbed the remote.

"Fine then. Whatever's meant to come, will come. Let's just sit back, relax and enjoy our last days in this world. I should've signed up in Freeza's poker club when I had the chance though…"

"Don't be so pessimistic," Bulma smiled. "Things have worked out before, I'm sure that they'll work out this time too."

Author's Note: Yeah, I know. Lotsa talking, no action. That's what happens when you get too many inspiration shots at a time. Actually I didn't mean to make it as long but so far only half of all the chapters are uploaded :3 Ookay, time to get things more interesting. Next chapter - a haunted house...