Stay or go – that was the question, and one that Piccolo pondered at length while his ally was inside, tending to his wife.
Piccolo knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it wasn't his place to be here – not with these people. He'd always known that he was not like them in any way; matter of fact, knew now that he was even less like them. Before, it had always been something of a comfort to know that at least he was born to earth…that he had as much right to this planet as they did, regardless of appearances.
Now, he wasn't so sure.
Of course, he couldn't see himself returning to the desert and ignoring this newly named problem, either. Leave a fight like this to someone else? No. Not in a millennia. But to fight it with Son Goku?
…well, there was ONE other viable option, but he was as loathe to face it as a cat was to swim. There were his own brothers. They wouldn't stand for an intruder on their planet; gods, they didn't always tolerate the locals. Sure, going back would be…awkward, but he had a feeling that Tambourine would help him gloss it over, especially in light of this strange set of circumstances…
Would they come with him to fight? Sure they would….most of them, anyway. The question was, would going back to them look too much like begging for help? And was that exactly what it was?
The demon…alien…he didn't even know how to think of himself anymore, growled under his breath, glaring up at the wide spread of stars. There was a time and a place for pride, as he'd long since learned…and it wasn't here or now.
The stars were unusually bright that night….even without the moon, the world was soft and silver around him…the breeze light like a soothing hand. Like the night after his last real, militant involvement with them…when one of them had left him to die, and the others had not cared.
Sure, he would have done the same. He'd confessed to as much – but the knowledge was heavy on his mind….another training weight, one he wished he could take off. "Every man for himself" may well have been the unwritten motto of his clan. If something happened to him out there, he was on his own…exactly the way it should be, right? And there was, of course, no guarantee that the others wouldn't turn on him even if they won…
So what. He could handle himself.
Of course, that WOULD be one advantage to fighting alongside Son Goku. Son wouldn't leave him. Not even when he himself requested it….
Ye GODS where did that come from? If you fall, you DESERVE to die. You want insurance, get a day job.
Pragmatically speaking, he really only had one choice. And Piccolo was nothing if not pragmatic. With a low sound between a snarl and a groan – it was going to be a LONG night – he turned his face due north. Unfortunately, he hadn't taken to the air yet when he heard the door creak open.
* * *
Son Goku blinked at his tentative ally's back as he came out of his house. He'd expected the other to leave during the fight…but now that the danger was past, he'd sort of hoped that he'd stick around. "Hey….where are you going?"
"Who died and made YOU my keeper?" The reply gruff….and far from pleasant.
"You're not gonna go fight him all by yourself, are you?" Son asked, padding after him…between the wide eyes and the rapid steps, bearing a strange resemblance to a lost puppy.
A snort from his rival, who had not turned around. Piccolo seemed….unusually cranky. Maybe it was just that they'd both gotten beaten so badly a little while ago. Losing a fight usually put him in a terrible… "No" the taller warrior all but spat, cutting off Goku's rather wavery train of thought like a sharp knife through string cheese.
"Okay, that's good, because you should really take me with you."
Just as coolly as ever, the demon replied "You're not coming."
Son couldn't help but have his jaw drop at that one. "Like heck I'm not – that's MY son out there, and MY brother. I'm…"
At that point, the demon did turn to face him….and his normally stony face was now set in ice. "I'm going home."
Not for the first time that night, Goku found himself speechless. He knew what those people were capable of; he'd seen most of it. For a rather breathless moment, he watched this strange being's homecoming in his mind's eye. It wasn't hard to imagine. There'd probably be pieces of him all through the Tsumi Tsubris.
Piccolo had already nodded to him and turned to go again before he could come close to finding any suitable words…and those only because he preceded them by grabbing Piccolo by the arm and spinning him back around. "That's even worse! Ye gods, Pic, they'll kill you…."
Moonlight flashed on bared teeth…a miniature, curved moon in the other's face, wet and sharp….and the next thing he knew, he was sitting on the ground, the whole left side of his face on fire. "Don't touch me," he said, voice lending itself more to threat than to conversation…and he wiped his hand on the side of his gi as though it had come into contact with something completely distasteful.
In spite of himself, the Saiyan glared. "What exactly are you tryin' to prove?"
"That I haven't lost my mind," was the cool retort. "We couldn't beat him the first time – the second won't be any different."
"It'll be even WORSE if you go out there and…"
The demon rounded on him again…eyes blazing with the slightest hint of crimson…foxfire on a starless night. "And since when," he drawled, low voice the thrum of thunder, "do I let you tell me what to do?"
Before Goku could even hope to construct an answer, his rival was gone.
* * *
There are few things in all of the universe that a Saiyajin warrior can be said to fear. Boredom, Raditzu mused, kicking at a small stone, must be one of them. Top of the list, right next to starvation.
He shouldn't have given his brother so much time.
If he'd just finished the fight….maybe knocked Kakarotto upside the head and flung him into his ship….he could have dealt with all of the messy explanations later. Actually, the more he thought about it…especially now that there was nothing to do but watch the grass dance in the wind and listen to the stomach-turning wails of his nephew…
Next time, he wouldn't be so generous.
Next time, he would be quick….at least with his brother. There really WAS no further use for the Namekseijin, except maybe as after-dinner entertainment. He wondered if he could make the seemingly stoic warrior scream. Now that…THAT would be a challenge.
Unfortunately he had the sinking feeling that said challenge would be nothing compared to convincing his brother that he was Saiyajin, like it or not. It was a very sick thing, the wild-haired warrior decided, to have the gods play give and take with hope. One moment, he had been ecstatic to hear that his brother….his blood…was living still. Of all the Saiyajin to be sent to earth, HIS kin had survived…
And the boy had had such promise. Raditzu could remember peering down at that fierce little infant….could remember grinning when his brother had snapped at his hand. Maybe he could have made first class someday, if…
But true warriors had no use for "ifs." There was nothing to do but salvage what could be salvaged…by any means possible.
The massive warrior scowled as his nephew's cries faded from full-out yells to a kitten-like whimpering. "Oh, shut up," he growled, giving the pod a little kick.
Of course, he was ignored.
* * *
Cymbal glared up at the figure of his younger brother with all the aggravated ire of an orator who has had his podium snatched out from under him. The day had started out as a normal one…and the meeting had promised to be less than eventful. He had, in fact, been in mid-sip of his customary glass of water when the supposedly dead Piccolo came barreling in through an open window, landing with balletic grace on the table…feet apart, arms crossed, the picture of collected urgency.
Needless to say, the elder demon had choked. He had continue to choke – while Piano pounded him on the back with a lack of accuracy that was more than made up for by his enthusiasm – from Piccolo's first appearance right up until about mid-description of his strange antagonist. Needless to say…the eldest of the Daimaos was not in a mood to listen.
"Can I just…interrupt?" He asked in the relaxed, subdued tone of voice that could only mean that someone was in real trouble. "Aren't you supposed to be dead?"
Piccolo stopped speaking for only a moment to look him dead in the eye. "Sorry…must've missed that meeting."
"Where have you been?"
Piccolo offered him a truly aggravating smirk. "Waiting for you to come looking for me. You never did."
"We THOUGHT you had died in the arena." Cymbal snapped back, half rising from his seat.
"I thought you'd at least wait around to be sure."
Piano and Drum's heads began to swivel back and forth between the two of them…a couple of spectators watching the tennis ball bounce back and forth, not fully understanding the rules of the game, but fascinated nonetheless.
"Brilliant, brat – that way we could BOTH have gotten killed, and neither one'd be left to get the job done."
"Yeah, speaking of which….last I saw, you STILL hadn't gotten it done…"
"Alright, smartass, if you were close enough to see him, why didn't YOU pick him off?"
The two of them had moved a bit closer during the course of the discussion…eyes fixed in a direct line of challenge... and neither flinching.
"Why should I have?"
"Because YOU missed the shot the first time!" Cymbal's fist struck the table then, setting glasses to shaking.
Piccolo strode across the table, stopping perhaps a foot or two from Cymbal, glaring down at him with all the malice that he could muster – which was considerable. "Why can't you just admit it, Cymbal?" His tone was scathing, scornful. "It wasn't some stupid mistake I made that lost that one. He beat us. That easy. Get over it."
The older warrior was on his feet in an instant – levitating up, eyeball to eyeball, nose to nose, set of flashing, bared teeth mirrored two ways. "And do WHAT, brat? Go jaunting over to help him save the world? Ye GODS, you must've hit YOUR head in that ring to…"
Cymbal's voice was loud enough to cover the roar of a fire or a whole phlanx of screams…and yet, oddly enough, a low whisper cut through it, sibilant and cool."You are right, Cymbal."
Silence fell on the room – the whisper echoing somehow…more so than had the yells. And all eyes turned to the speaker, who was looking at none of them. He was examining his water glass with disinterested speculation and, to all appearances, finished speaking.
For once, Cymbal was the first to recover. "I'm…what?"
It was a very odd thing, Piccolo noticed, to see a demon completely flabbergasted.
A longsuffering sigh from Tambourine. "You have my agreement. It would be foolish to involve ourselves in a battle that we haven't the strength to win."
The elder demon bristled. "Now hold on, I didn't say that…"
Tambourine waved a hand. "You don't have to. Son Goku has proven too much for us – surely this being is out of our…"
* * *
Piccolo wasn't really sure how it'd happened. One minute, Cymbal had been ready to rip his throat out for even suggesting that they get involved in this…and now here he was, going over logistics with Tambourine, preparing for actual action. .
What a straightforward, logical description of the problem and the need for participation had not resolved…Tambourine had. It had taken the smaller demon exactly four whispered sentences.
It was downright uncanny…and Piccolo wondered for a moment if the non-warrior had ever done anything like that before. If he'd always been doing it, and he'd just been too preoccupied to notice…if he'd ever done the same to him.
As though sensing his thoughts, Tambourine peered at him over the brim of his glass – the varying grays of his eyes blending together like a monochrome ocean. Slowly, deliberately, he winked.
For a brief moment, that turned Piccolo's blood to ice…though he could not imagine why.
* * *
Offers of help were not long in coming for Son Goku. Even as he paced the lawn after his unusual ally's departure, Krillen landed, falling into step beside him and talking far, far too fast – wanting to know what had happened, what was going on, and was that Piccolo he'd sensed?
So Goku explained it all. He even repeated it for Yamcha when he showed up – but he did so in such a distracted voice that his old friends exchanged a look of concern.
He didn't say anything else…save to tell them that they couldn't come with him. Getting his son back was something he just had to do alone…
Well…alone because the only other warrior on the planet who he wouldn't have to worry about too much in a fight like that…had left him. Was it silly to feel a bit let down? Betrayed?
Probably…but he did anyway.
And by Kami, he was worried about Gohan. He knew that that wasn't helping, and that Raditz wouldn't kill him so long as he needed bait, but that's not the sort of thing that a parent could help thinking about.
Besides, the poor kid was scared out of his mind. Goku could tell. For the first time, he found cause to bitterly regret not training Gohan…at least if he had, the boy would know how to keep calm, bide his time…not attract attention to himself…
And he swore to himself then and there that, as soon as he got him back, Gohan WOULD learn to fight…no matter what Chichi said. One way…or another.
* * *
The logistics of the plan – if Piccolo was willing to call them logistics at all – were alarmingly simple. Let the two Saiyajin duke it out…and then come in immediately afterward to destroy the winner. In theory, it was an effective (if bare boned) approach. Just the sort that Cymbal favored…in spite of any and all warnings that perhaps Raditz could deal with Son and the four of them in succession. (It was just generally accepted that "the bookworm" wouldn't fight.)
And…the more he thought about this…the more irrationally nervous he became. Something about all this felt wrong, even more so than it had to start with.
He had to get his head on straight again, and he needed a bit of solitude to do it.
"I need some air," he muttered by way of excuse, turning sharply to the right. He moved swiftly through the dizzying array of corridors, his cape billowing like a lost cloud behind him, his expression thunderous.
He didn't know how long he'd wandered before he came to one of the many windows of the fortress. These "windows" were really just large, square holes cut into the unforgiving granite and covered with sturdy, if somewhat crude, oaken shutters reinforced with forbidding iron hinges and bolts. Once upon a time, defenders had used these openings to dump cauldrons of boiling oil onto attackers. On impulse, he flung the heavy shutters open, not even wincing as the old bolts creaked in protest, not startled by the echoing thud of wood on stone. The rush of bitter, boreal wind that swept into the fortress made the usual drafts seem like a summer's breeze. Piccolo took no notice of it, even when it set his cape to lashing, even when ice crystals began to form on his eyelids. Effortlessly, he climbed onto the sill, allowing the arctic wind to pass over him, feeling the bite of the frost.
Piccolo sighed in something that bordered on relief. He had never felt comfortable within his family's stronghold. There was something in the sharp turns and narrow hallways that brought to mind the innards of some great beast. Its heartbeat was footsteps that seemed to echo forever once they'd fallen…the sound lonely and distant. Its breathing lay in the endless drafts…and it's thoughts were a near-eternal feeling of menace. He always felt as if the fortress would try to keep him, trap him. So must Jonah have felt in the innards of the whale…
Self-derision welled up within him yet again; he, the last son of Daimao, was set on edge by stone, mortar, and an overactive imagination.
What's the matter with me? He wondered…letting his restless gaze find the stars. He'll die. It shouldn't make any difference to me who kills Son, so long as he dies and remains dead. It shouldn't matter who kills him or how he does it…shouldn't matter, but…
Gods, I wonder if I'm the only person on the face of the earth that can make something so simple as murder complicated.