Chapter 31 – Farewell, city of fears
Author's Note: oopsie. It's been about a month since I last wrote a chapter to this story, or what? Here's the moral: always finish the story before you start uploading. Hrmph. I was on vacation, then I didn't have the boredom to write, then I completely forgot about it and then I didn't feel like writing at all because I didn't get any reviews. (prods Suuki and Aldrea) Atleast I can still count on j00 guys, huh? o.0 Ahwell, I'll just finish that fic in the near future and then print it out for the next generations. Everyone knows that DBZ/Sailormoon fics only get attention when some romance stuff ish involved (grim frown) Okay then, this chapter here only involves some abandoned houses and stupid burglars but atleast it's twice as long as my other chapters. Take that as a compensation. (And yush, actually I just fell into another one of my inspiration zones again. This story hasn't had enough Super Saiyan stuff anyway.) Uh... enjoy. >.>;
All deformed buildings in the city were black and melting all over, inside and outside. But not the concert hall. Outside it had really looked like any other house in the city but inside was a whole different world.
It was huge, reaching to the horizon and having a colorful sky with random clouds floating above it. It was hard to say what the ground was covered with: it looked like it was changing all the time – green grass in one moment, crystal clear water in the other. Trees in one moment, huge bluish semi-transparent crystals in the other. There had been a concert hall outside but inside was a whole different world, much bigger than the hall itself could ever have been. And everything was so stunningly bright…
"If I didn't know what the Heaven looked like, I'd say that this is the Heaven," Goku commented, raising a brow. "If you ask me, the boss of all boogeymen can't possibly live here, or what?"
"Dunno, sure doesn't look freaky… if you count the odd landscape out," Trunks agreed. "Look at those crystals." He poked one and it gave a silent tune. "Perhaps the boss got tired of dark closets and lurking under the beds and decided to go living somewhere nicer?"
"If spooks are powerful enough to create such a world, I think I'll rather sleep the rest of my life with the lights on," Star Healer said with a frown. "So, we're here… where's the boss then?"
"Finding him may take some time," Uranus agreed, looking around. "Then again, we're still trespassers and I'm surprised nobody has stormed here to kick the stuffing out of us yet." She looked up at the bright sky and noted that the sky only seemed bright – actually it kept changing all the time, just like the whole landscape. "Hello!" she called out then.
Something flashed in the distance, in the light sky – no wait, the sky had to be dark at the second because the flash was white. Or was it dark? Nothing seemed to be solid or certain in that world. Then they heard the echo of a distant sound. A high-pitched call, perhaps a squeal, a neigh or a jingle, it was hard to say.
"I know that sound…!" Neptune muttered. She glanced at Uranus who nodded slowly and looked at the approaching figure. It had four legs… and two wings.
"I thought I've made it very clear that this door must never be opened and… oh, it's you." Pegasus landed in front of them. "Should've guessed. My everlasting plague."
"We're glad to see you too," Uranus agreed cynically, turning back into Haruka as there obviously was no threat. "Does this mean that you're the big boss of all those monsters out there?"
Pegasus nodded. "What did you expect? Boogeymen and other monsters of the night have always belonged to the world of nightmares, thus under my reign. I have to admit, they're not much trouble though, seeing as they created those offices and stuff by themselves. Thanks to that, I have more time to deal with all the temporary problems here."
"Waaaitaminute, if you're the big cheese here then you were also the one who sent those creatures into this single city, right?" Hotaru asked. Pegasus nodded.
"Why?" the girl demanded.
Pegasus glared back at her. "Because one of us here, no names mentioned, decided to destroy the world of nightmares and I had to put its inhabitants somewhere, right? Usually they lurk around in the nightmare world, visiting humans when they feel like it. Currently they don't have a world to lurk in, so I'm forced to store them here," he nodded at the door. "That's why they had to start working all night long, hence the offices and hierarchy. I'm surprised that the humans still haven't gotten used to their presence yet but to be honest, that's already their problem."
"Looks like running around in that city didn't have much point then," Seiya remarked with a frown.
"Well, still better than you beating up some poor innocent boogeyman who would've surely showed up behind your door as soon as darkness fell," Pegasus replied. "Listen, the door to the human world opened at midnight and will close again at 1 AM. Before that you'll have to leave, or you'll be stuck in Elysion."
"One question," Hotaru suddenly said. "Why does the city look exactly like it looked like when that darkness demon changed the Western Capital?"
Pegasus, who had already turned around, looked back with his ears twitching. "You destroyed the demon and the nightmare world but the demon's powers were left behind, floating in Space and Time as pure energy. After all, if the demon had taken its power with it, that old monk who's currently keeping an eye on it wouldn't have had a chance against it. Those powers belonged to Elysion and so I took them back, putting them into this city like the rest of the world's remains."
"So how come all those boogeymen and stuff weren't destroyed along with the nightmare world?" Taiki wondered.
Vegeta snorted. "You have obviously never tried taking over a world. In order to completely rule a world, you have to get rid of every possible source of resistance. You'll have to destroy everyone, turn them into slaves or drive them away. Or team up with them, but no serious conqueror would do that as all allies are unreliable. That demon there… hrm, slaves, I assume?" he asked, glancing at Pegasus. The winged unicorn nodded.
"Remember how I told you about a city that was suffering from a nightmare attack back when the demon gathered energy to return; right after Sailor Pluto had banished it? The demon used the boogeymen to drain energy and then sent them all into this world after it was done. They had been wandering around this same city for a while before I caught them and organized things around here a little. Then they went on by themselves."
"Smart demon," the Saiyan prince commented with a grin. "Though not that smart as destroying would've been far more effective. Banishing always leaves the threat that one day the creatures will return with a war."
"You've done some serious thinking with that, huh?" Bulma asked, frowning at her husband. Vegeta smirked.
"You know, plotting world destruction was as normal for a young Saiyan prince as playing soccer for an Earth kid. To sum the whole thing up, we can just go back to the house now, have some sleep and continue with the Dragonball hunt in the morning… or does anyone disagree?"
"I don't think we can get inside," Haruka said with a yawn, now suddenly noticing that it was getting awfully late. "But I really need some sleep or you won't have a driver in the morning."
Pegasus, turning around again, looked back. "Go to Summerstar Street 234b. They won't be glad to see you there but I'm sure that you guys will be able to convince them. You've proved to be quite creative over those last days… get out of here now, the door won't stay open for long."
"So, we can trust you with the city? You promise to get everything back in order?" Hotaru demanded for the last time before stepping out. The unicorn nodded.
"It's my job and even if it takes a little time, I will finish it, no matter what. Don't worry. Everything will be okay. Remember the address? Nice. Now, get lost."
"Wait!" Bulma suddenly shouted just when Pegasus had spread out his wings and the bell was tolling 1 AM in the distance. "One final question. What does the whole thing have to do with the Capsule Corporation?"
Now Pegasus grinned. The door slid shut but the woman could still hear his last two words:
"Office equipment."
It was almost half past one when they got to Summerstar Street and found the house. It was small, had three floors and a nice garden – a little black and melting at the moment but still nice. The sign above the door was new and temporary as expected.
""MONSTER INN"," Goten read out loud. "Well, that's new."
"The city is huge," Taiki guessed with a wide yawn. After getting to the bottom of the secrets of that city, the tension had disappeared and they were all sleepy. "Everyone knows that sunshine destroys the boogeys. If I lived in the other corner of the city and needed a place to stay within the next five minutes…"
"You'd come here," Goku agreed. "Let's go then. Bulma, I suppose you can get us a few rooms here too, eh?"
Bulma laughed, stepped in and turned to the young girl behind the counter with a very friendly, typical I'm-important-and-you're-not smile. "Hello, my name's Bulma Briefs. I'd like to have a few rooms." She looked back at the others. "About three or four, if you have any."
The girl, obviously a vampire too, gasped, her knees began to shake and about a minute later the whole third floor was theirs.
"That whole business is a little mean," Goku complained when they went upstairs. "You scare the heck out of them and they're forced to give you everything you want, with a cherry on top just because their bosses would eat them alive if they didn't help you in any way possible."
"Kakarot, you're a softie," Vegeta remarked with a frown. "Then again, what else is new?"
"It's only for tonight," Bulma claimed. "Besides, I didn't force them to give us that floor."
"Yeah you did," his son commented, knowing Bulma well enough. "With your presence."
Michiru frowned slightly. "Even if it is only for tonight, you should take the extra keys back. What if some boogeymen burn and disappear with sunrise only because you have the keys to some completely empty rooms?"
Bulma sighed, nodded and took the keys back. They divided themselves into three rooms and curled up in the beds, sofas and armchairs without even undressing. The night had been long and full of surprises.
Vegeta opened his eyes; he usually needed less sleep than the others. The Saiyan prince snorted, yawned widely and sat up. Then he blinked.
The room had been big and elegant when they entered it. The third floor was obviously the most sophisticated, the closets and tables were made of dark oak, the beds and sofas were huge and soft, the general impression was very good, even if a bit old-fashioned. He and Bulma had claimed the big bed ("Hey, I'm the one who got us here, I deserve a bed!"-"And I'm very willing to beat the daylight out of anyone who dares to send me on a sofa!") and Goku along with the two kids who shared the room with them had taken the sofa and the two armchairs. The furniture had been awesome… but not any more.
Vegeta silently poked a spring that was sticking out of the dusty brown mattress. It was real, all right, and so was the bumpy mattress. The pillow that had been so clean and soft at night was now small, yellow and just as bumpy as the mattress.
The prince floated in the air and landed on the carpet – thin and full of holes as he noticed. The sun had risen and all the lies of the night had disappeared. The house was very old and obviously abandoned. The closet had only one door which was hanging on a single hinge. The table was about to fall apart and the windows were boarded up. A small mouse was watching Vegeta from a hole in the corner.
"Get up, Kakarot," Vegeta poked the Saiyan on the sofa. Goku's eyelid twitched, he opened his eyes, focused them on Vegeta, then looked at the rest of the room, glanced at Vegeta again and sat up. The sofa screeched and fell apart.
"I'm hungry," Goku announced with a yawn, rubbing his thigh that had been bruised by a spring that had poked out of the sofa as soon as it fell apart.
"So am I," Vegeta agreed. "Don't think an abandoned house has a kitchen though."
The word "kitchen" instantly woke the two kids up. After admiring the new room for a short while, they started poking Bulma with a rusty spring. Vegeta went to the window and pulled two boards off to look outside. The streets were full of people now – restless, pale, frightened and nervous.
"We obviously had the best sleep in this city," Goten remarked. "Coming, coming." There had been knocking on the old door and the kid went over to open it. It was Haruka.
"I'm glad to see that your bed doesn't look better," she remarked grimly. "I think we should grab some breakfast in a café or something and then go after the seventh Dragonball. I'm sick of this city."
"Ouch! Why I oughtta… morning, Haruka. We have enough food back at the capsule house," Bulma said, glaring sleepily at her son. She got out of the bed and looked around. "Ugh… actually I even expected something like that but I never thought it would look so ugly…!"
"If you expected to see an abandoned house in the morning, why didn't you expect to see something ugly?" Haruka asked back. The woman snorted, got up and stretched her back.
"Are the others awake?" she asked.
"Michiru and Hotaru are, don't know about the Three Lights," Haruka replied.
"Well, someone go and wake them up, we should really get going. This place is awful!" Bulma complained, sneaking past a hole in the floor to the window. Haruka's eyes widened and she looked at the two kids who had already turned to leave the room.
"Oh come on… please let me do this?" she asked. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!"
"Exactly," Trunks replied. "Aren't you too old for these things already?"
Haruka laughed. "Never." She left the room, stopped behind the door that led to the Three Lights' room and kicked it. The rotten door fell apart instantly.
"Rise and shine, everybody!" Trunks, who still wouldn't have missed that chance for the world, shouted. "It's a beautiful day!"
"Yeah, it's already about six AM and we're gonna have a busy day!" Goten added.
"You two are good at this," Haruka admitted with a grin, leaning against the doorjamb. "And they're right, guys, get up and get ready, we have a lovely day of Dragonball hunting before us. Complete with monsters, yetis, dragons and six-eyed cheese cakes, this planet apparently has everything and we wouldn't miss it for the world, now would we?"
"I was already hoping that it would be a nightmare…" Seiya moaned, trying to curl up under the tiny pillow.
"You're mean," Michiru commented to Haruka with a smile, passing the doorway. "Good morning, guys. Does this hotel have breakfast?"
"It doesn't even have decent beds, whadda you expect?" Goten replied. "Mom says that we have enough food back at the capsule house and we'll go there as soon as everyone's awake."
"Well, due to the local wake-up service here everyone is awake so we might as well get going," Yaten remarked, getting up. "Argh… my back! I thought I'd never see a worse bed than the one back at the recording studio in Tokyo."
"That wasn't a bed," Taiki replied, getting up too. "That was an ancient armchair."
"Above that, a small one," Yaten agreed. "Okay then. Get your lazy butt out of that bed, Seiya. I'm hungry and some bacon would really hit the spot."
"Does anyone actually know where the park is?" Vegeta asked as they left the old house or actually broke out of it as the door was boarded up. Some people passing by stared at them and then hurried away as fast as possible.
"We crossed the city so many times last night that I personally have no idea where we are right now," Goku agreed. "But my stomach says that way," he pointed towards the sunrise.
"Well, I don't trust your stomach," Vegeta remarked as they started down the pavement. "I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up in a harbour or something."
"This city doesn't have a harbour," Bulma reminded him. The prince snorted.
"Exactly. Kakarot, what the heck are you doing now?"
"Just… seeing if it's fresh," Goku justified when Haruka dragged him away from an open-air café where the Saiyan had tried to steal a hamburger from a kid. "You know, you can never trust the beef these days and children are our future…"
"And you will soon be distant past if you keep that attitude," Haruka warned him with a frown. "I know that store… didn't you get your guitar strings here, Seiya?"
Seiya nodded. "Down that alley in that case and straight forward."
"See? My stomach was right," Goku commented. "Whenever there's apple pie in the fridge, I can feel its presence from three miles away."
"You mean the pie I ate just before we left the house?" Trunks asked, raising a brow.
Goku stared at him. "I wanted to eat that!"
"Well, I got there first," the kid claimed, hiding behind Vegeta's foot, just in case.
"Another word about apple pies and I'll beat you both up," the Saiyan prince predicted with a very grim frown. They went on silently for a while. When Vegeta was hungry, he was grumpy and when Vegeta was grumpy, getting on his nerves was like juggling with matches in a gunpowder barrel.
"Not a bad showing, Goku," Hotaru suddenly said. "There's the park."
"And there's the house, with its door wide open," Haruka added as her eyes narrowed. "Who was the last one to come out?"
"T'was me, but the door closed right behind me," Trunks replied. His eyes had, in the contrary, widened. Vegeta added speed and was now walking faster. The others almost ran to catch up with him and when they did, they could see that his eyes were closed. He was frowning but then again, he was almost always frowning.
"Watch out, a bump in the road," Bulma warned. Vegeta dodged the bump and then opened his eyes, seeming a bit… shocked. And furious.
"Two auras," he said. "Two human auras. Men. About forty years old. In. Our. Kitchen." The look in his eyes would've scared even the four horsemen of the Apocalypse to death. Or atleast three of them. "By the fridge."
Goku's eyes flashed too. The naïve joker got lost and the powerful Saiyan warrior stepped forth to defend his breakfast till the last drop of blood. Trunks's and Goten's fists clenched. That sight would've been enough to force the four horsemen to get jobs at McDonald's.
"Burglars, I suppose," Bulma remarked calmly. About ten years with Vegeta by her side had made her immune to just about everything. "Yeah, none of us locked the door, or what?"
"The door didn't even have a keyhole at night," Haruka replied, glancing curiously at the four warriors. "Hoo boy. I feel sorry for the burglars, I really do."
They had come to the house and peered inside. The drawers were pulled out, the closets were open and everything was thrown on the floor which was covered with dirty footprints.
"It's gonna take an eternity to clean that up…!" Bulma hissed quietly, glaring around as they sneaked in. They could hear two voices in the kitchen.
"Hey, this ham is pretty good!" one voice said, apparently with a grin. "Try it."
"Let's just hope the owners don't return soon," the other one replied. "I still wanna finish up with the potato salad."
"Yeah. It's gonna take them an eternity to clean that up," Vegeta agreed with his wife just as quietly, looking towards the kitchen where two voices were to be heard. But his footsteps weren't quiet when he suddenly showed up on the doorway. Goku stepped behind the opened window at the same moment.
The two men were really in their mid-forties and obviously professional burglars which was most likely a well-paid occupation in that petrified city. One of them, the one eating ham was fat and short, with a brown face and tiny mean eyes. The other one was taller, paler and had light hair. His face seemed quite cruel too. Both wore dark clothes and there was a huge bag filled with valuable stuff they had found all over the house lying on the floor. In short, a nice cliché.
"Knock knock," Vegeta said with his eyes flaming in rage. The two men froze.
"I believe you accidentally came into the wrong house," the Saiyan prince said calmly. That was the kind of voice people get after passing the stage of normal anger and reaching the small puddle of deceptive friendliness that is about to turn into maniacal, gleaming fury. The two fell for it instantly.
"Why… really? I could've sworn it looked just like our house!" one man exclaimed with well-pretended surprise. The shorter one gasped as well.
"They all look so alike at night… and it's a capsule house too, they're all mass production. We're sorry, really," he added, noting that they were massively outnumbered. But then again… by that time everyone had showed up behind Vegeta's back and Goku was all alone behind the window, glaring silently at them or actually at the ham the shorter one was eating.
"I'm sure that you would just like to leave and not to bother anyone, right?" Vegeta continued. He was hungry. And had a short temper. The two men nodded frantically, quickly sending each other short glances that were supposed to describe their escape plan to each other.
"We will just get going now… it won't happen again, really," the taller one promised, leaning forward a bit and on the next second he suddenly grabbed the bag from the floor. Both burglars turned around and dashed towards the window, jumped on the windowsill, slammed their fists into Goku's face and leaped outside.
Mmyeah, let's rewind to the "slammed" part, shall we?
"See now, that wasn't very friendly," Goku commented, lifting the two up by their throats and placing them back inside.
"He doesn't even have a scratch…!" one burglar hissed to the other.
"You almost forgot this," Vegeta remarked, stepping into the kitchen and picking up a long heavy iron bar, the one people usually use to break doors open. "That is yours, isn't it?" The two nodded. Vegeta nodded too and tied the bar into a knot.
"Whoopsie," he said. "Looks like I broke it." The burglars' feet weren't carrying them any more. The prince of the Saiyans turned around to face them. His eyes narrowed, then widened, then flashed and turned green. The hair was suddenly golden. Small pieces started falling down from the ceiling as the Super Saiyan aura slowly climbed up Vegeta's feet, surrounded his shoulders and filled the whole kitchen, sizzling quietly.
"Isn't that a little redundant?" Goku asked curiously.
"The best way to let your anger out," Vegeta claimed with his eyes still nailed on the burglars who were desperately trying to look like the carpet. "The second best way, actually. The first one would be placing your hand in front of someone's face… and form a little energy orb…" a bright orb appeared by his palm, "and blast it into someone's face…"
"Waaaahhhh…. we're sorry, Sir, we didn't know!" The two burglars were petrified – and no wonder. "We give everything back, and everything we've stolen in the last month!" Vegeta's fist twitched a little. "In the last year! Year! Plleeeeease don't kill us!"
"Year, you said?" Goku asked thoughtfully, turning into a Super Saiyan too. "I don't think we need that. But what about the food you ate?" He wasn't as angry as Vegeta but then again, who could possibly be angrier than hungry Vegeta facing two burglars who just ate his food? Suddenly he raised his eyebrows. "And what's that horrible smell?"
Everyone glanced at the two burglars. At their pants, actually.
"That answers your question about the food they ate, Kakarot," Vegeta remarked with his eyebrows twitching. "For crying out loud…!"
Bulma calmly switched the air conditioner on.
"We'll buy you new food! Thrice as much as we ate!" the men promised.
"Let's see…" the ceiling was now full of cracks, "you have ten minutes to clean up the mess you made in the house, to clean yourselves up and to put everything back to where they belong. Otherwise…" his chin raised a little. "Well, you seem imaginative enough. And I wouldn't try to sneak away if I were you. I really wouldn't."
"Well, congratulations, Vegeta," Bulma announced, walking up to the fridge as the two men quickly disappeared from the kitchen and the Saiyans turned back to normal. "You managed to solve a situation without blowing anyone up. Doesn't it feel good to work out problems without violence?"
Vegeta snorted and sat down behind the table. "No. I just knew that if I wouldn't force them to clean the place up, you'd force me to do it. Now get me something to eat. Fast."
"Sure thing, Your Highness, just gnaw on this while I'm at it," his wife replied with a grin, throwing him a chicken leg. There was screaming in another room and something fell down with a crash. "Trying to sneak out, huh?" Trunks's voice asked over the familiar aura sizzling.
It took them two hours until everyone was full, the house was as clean as a Dragonball and the two burglars had bought their fridge full of food. Now they were standing there in the middle of the park, staring pitifully at Vegeta while Bulma packed the capsule house and unpacked the plane.
"Let's see now…" Vegeta muttered, obviously trying to come up with something.
"You're not planning to kill them, are you?" Michiru asked him.
"I've been a softie long enough," the prince remarked. "Would anyone actually miss them?"
"Perhaps they'll come in handy if we ever happen to visit this city again," Bulma guessed. "After all, they cleaned the house up very well."
"Fine then." Vegeta turned around and went on the plane. "Haruka, close the door. Let's go and find that last Dragonball."
The two thieves stared at the plane until it completely disappeared into the azure sky. Then they finally risked to breathe again.