"You know," Goku muttered as he watched the smoke from his last
attack trailing in wisps through the ebony strains of his brother's hair,
"that really should have worked."
"Tell that to him," the demon growled, half leaping, and half stumbling to Goku's side. Son could see this close the fine sheen of sweat across the green warrior's face, and though it struck him as odd, he thought that he could catch the edgy scent of adrenaline – a throwback to roots he was only beginning to realize that he had.
"Um...I don't think he cares, Pic, but it was a nice thought."
Yet again, Son found himself on the end of a look that would have wilted a cactus. The demon didn't even bother to answer him, pulling into a defensive position, fangs bright in the growing light from Raditzu's aura – and Goku figured that he'd best do the same. "I don't suppose you've got any ideas."
"I've got one," Piccolo answered, but there was something so cold in his tone as to rob it of any hope it might once have conveyed, leaving it to fall flat on his ears. Son would have liked to have looked at him then, but he didn't dare turn his eyes away from the clearing cloud.
Because Raditzu was grinning at him.
There was something monumental about the situation; something in the way the man walked, massive strides designed to eat ground, shoulders back, tree trunks of legs planting firmly with every step. This was a man made to destroy worlds – the cruel smile that twisted his lips was evidence enough of that.
"Alright, Pic," Son expelled in a very low voice. "Whatever you've got, we'd better try it."
"It's not what I've got, monkey. It's what you've got."
At that statement, Son did turn his head, incomprehension written across the smooth planes of his face.
Piccolo's eyes were deadly serious when they met his. "You're the one who's gonna have to fight him. Alone."
* * *
Alone...he felt so alone.
Gohan could safely say that he had never been this afraid in his life. He didn't like where he was – it was a cold place, made of stone and silence, wrapped all around in shadows. It was so dark that the towering, ebony-clad wraith that walked before him was hard to find if he looked away even for a moment. Fear thrummed in his throat that the taller man would turn a corner or walk too fast, and he would lose him...
A pair of silver eyes became visible in even the barely-perceptible light in the corridor...two flat, distant stars from between wavery clouds. "Do not be afraid, child. I know these walks very well – no one will harm you here."
Gohan swallowed convulsively. "But I...I can't see, sir..."
"Catch hold of my cloak, and you'll know exactly where I am, won't you."
The child had to reach three times to find it the edge of it; it was like feeling around in darkened water for the pebbles at the bottom, and in the end, hardly worth it. The fabric was cool to his fingertips and soft to the touch. . . just more shadows to hold onto. "Th-thankyou, sir."
"Of course, child." And he continued walking. Gohan had to nearly jog to keep even with the man's long strides, even when they were slowed. His young legs strained with the effort of moving so quickly, and threatened to cave whenever they would pause.
"Where are we going, sir?"
"Somewhere. . . safe, child. Somewhere very safe."
"Will my daddy be there?"
"Eventually."
"And Piccolo-san?"
"Yes, of course. And. . . Piccolo-san."
Gohan didn't like the way that this man said "Piccolo-san." His voice had an eerie feeling to it. He decided not to ask him about it again.
"THERE you are," snapped a voice that made Gohan jump – a sharp growl that was at once exactly like Piccolo's and nothing like Piccolo's. Instinctively, he ducked behind the hem of the cloak as if it would somehow shield him from this newcomer, this massive creature that he did not recognize.
"Was I supposed to be somewhere else?" Tambourine answered, tone glib. He was not afraid of the other man – Gohan could tell that immediately in the way that any child would instinctively know. He stepped a little closer to the man who had brought him here, trying very hard not to make any noise. His nostrils twitched at the smell of rose petals and, faintly, the scent of old books.
"You know what I'm talking about. I want to know what's going on." The twin setting suns of the newcomers eyes were narrowed to mere slits...and it seemed almost to Gohan that the could feel the other's anger, not in waves, but in hammer strokes. It was strong enough to give him a headache.
"Ah, that. Well, currently, you and I are having a less than friendly discussion that I'm not entirely sure that I can follow...and that is all I know." He offered the other a slight, differential bow.
"Tambourine..." this last growled out like a promise of death. "I'm missing something. And you're going to tell me what it is."
"It seems to me that you're missing a number of somethings...care to be more specific, brother-mine?"
The other was quiet for a moment after that...nails drumming against his arm, faster and faster. He's nervous! Gohan realized with a start, eyes widening at the other being. Something's making him nervous...
Before he could wonder what it was, the ground jumped underneath him, and he fell, covering the back of his head with his hands, and not caring whether or not the rumble covered his semi-muffled whimper. There was a terrible feeling of electricity, just like there is during a thunder storm in an open field, and a feeling of the air rippling and buckling all around him – he was reminded, for one crazy moment, of a time when he had accidentally fallen into a river...
And then it was over, leaving the stone around them to tremble in its wake.
* * *
At the first tremor, Cymbal spat out a particularly impressive curse, widening his stance and throwing his arms just slightly out for balance's sake. Unlike Gohan, he had no doubt whatsoever about what that tremor was – no earthquake, no eruption, no sudden rending of the world. Though he had no real chi senses to speak of, and very little in the way of telepathy, that sudden, electric feeling in the air could be only one thing. A blast. A massive one. One the likes of which he hadn't felt since his father's death, or maybe even then.
As soon as the world returned more or less to its natural order, he rounded sharply on his brother. "What in the HELL was that all about?"
Tambourine was very complacently brushing a bit of ceiling-dust from his sleeves. "A chi blast, I would think."
Cymbal was reaching the absolute end of his patience, which was tantamount to the little bit of flame at the end of a fuse finally coming to the dynamite. He flexed his claws and briefly soothed his flaring temper with the mental image of his brother's head on a stake. Preferably with the eyes gouged out and the mouth stitched shut...
Inhale. Exhale. "Tambourine..."
The slighter demon met his eyes – and there were twin pinpricks of red in the pupils. It took Cymbal a moment to realize that it was his own eyes he was seeing there, his own reflection, and no silent rage on his brother's part.
He was almost disappointed.
"Brother," Tambourine said in a tone only slightly less exasperated than his own. "Why don't you open a window." And with that, he walked on, hands tucked neatly in his sleeves.
Cymbal felt his lip pulling back over his fangs, and in a rare and monumental act of control, pulled it back down. He pivoted on his heel in true military manner, storming back up the corridor until he came to one of the massive, bolted windows, flinging it open with a very satisfying CRASH against the old stone of the walls.
In the southeast, still reflected on the snow, a great light was only just beginning to dim – the air wavering there still, like the air above asphalt in the summertime, trembling with unnatural heat.
It looked like the only way to find out what strange things were passing. . .was to go find them himself.
* * *
Piccolo picked his way cautiously over the churned-up earth, skidding down the last little slope to where he could see a bit of orange flapping in the breeze. He made it a point to step on Raditzu's body on the way, planting a heel firmly just above the basketball-sized hole in the Saiya- jin's torso. The body didn't so much as twitch, and so the demon permitted himself to give in fully to his first, instinctive relief. The alien was dead.
And his enemy-temporarily-ally really wasn't much better off. Piccolo stopped, staring down at him, arms crossed, expression blank.
Son opened one eye, irrepressible grin still curving up one corner of his lips, the corner that wasn't dripping blood. "Did it work?"
"It worked."
"So he's dead?"
"Yeah."
"Great. So, you gonna kill me now?" And there was something almost joking in the man's tone.
Piccolo scowled, deeply. "I'm thinking about it."
Son actually chuckled – very softly, probably due to the broken ribs. "Well, you get back to me on that, right? I think I'm just gonna take a little nap right now." The eye closed, and he was out...no doubt unconscious.
Which was good for him, because Piccolo would probably have kicked him for his insolence otherwise.
"I hate you," he growled without any real conviction. "Damn you, I really do."
Which was why he'd waited a split second on that Makkenkosappo...why he'd waited for Raditzu to drop the other man's body before firing.
"Pathetic," he muttered. And didn't kill him in the next second. And kept right on not killing him for another minute after that. Drained, he told himself. I used too much energy on the other monkey. No chi left.
Of course, at this point, he could probably just put a foot down on the other's throat and smothered him. . .but he pretended not to think of that. And he was almost relieved when something gave him an excuse to stop dwelling on it.
An approaching chi. A high one – and fresh, untapped. He recognized it a bare second later, and ground his back teeth together in irritation. He'd forgotten that he'd actually sent word for that psychotic...
And in the back of his mind, a faint bit of suspicion flared. What had taken so long. He hated his brother, hated him with a passion, but at the same time, it just wasn't LIKE Cymbal to dally when there was fighting to be done. There was no real reason that it should have taken him this long, if Tambourine had told him about...
He brushed that thought aside to study in detail later...right then, he had a problem. One of blasted moral problems that he was having more and more of lately. He found himself glaring down at the once-thought-human at his feet. "I should kill you. It'd be far more honorable than what HE would do with you."
And that at last made sense to EVERY part of him, even the small, warring parts that he no longer understood. Cymbal hated this man more than he ever had, for reasons that Piccolo neither understood nor cared to understand – he'd rip him apart piece by piece, and that if Son was lucky.
But smothering him still seemed wrong. A chi blast would be right, but Piccolo wasn't up to that yet. Maybe slitting his throat with a claw? Maybe collapsing his chest, or...no, none of it seemed right.
He was dimly aware that he was behaving irrationally, but he couldn't seem to help himself. Death was death, after all. Did it really matter how it came?
Damn it all, he didn't have time for this. With a deep, frustrated growl, he actually kicked the man – right into some nearby shrubbery that had miraculously escaped destruction, hiding him from view. Then, with sharp, angry motions, he drew a bright, indigo line across his own palm with one of his talons. . .sprinkling blood liberally around said brush to disguise the man's living scent. . . and there would be enough Saiya-jin blood around that Cymbal shouldn't think twice about it.
Piccolo then turned to face the direction from which his brother would come, arms crossed over his chest, chin resting almost on his collarbone...and fixing the northern sky with a definitive glare.
He was tired, he was weakened from his experience, and he was harboring a silent fury with himself that matched nothing that he'd ever felt before. Maybe he could fight if need be, maybe not. . . but there was no fear in him. Not anymore.
One who deserves death should not shy from it when it comes.
"Tell that to him," the demon growled, half leaping, and half stumbling to Goku's side. Son could see this close the fine sheen of sweat across the green warrior's face, and though it struck him as odd, he thought that he could catch the edgy scent of adrenaline – a throwback to roots he was only beginning to realize that he had.
"Um...I don't think he cares, Pic, but it was a nice thought."
Yet again, Son found himself on the end of a look that would have wilted a cactus. The demon didn't even bother to answer him, pulling into a defensive position, fangs bright in the growing light from Raditzu's aura – and Goku figured that he'd best do the same. "I don't suppose you've got any ideas."
"I've got one," Piccolo answered, but there was something so cold in his tone as to rob it of any hope it might once have conveyed, leaving it to fall flat on his ears. Son would have liked to have looked at him then, but he didn't dare turn his eyes away from the clearing cloud.
Because Raditzu was grinning at him.
There was something monumental about the situation; something in the way the man walked, massive strides designed to eat ground, shoulders back, tree trunks of legs planting firmly with every step. This was a man made to destroy worlds – the cruel smile that twisted his lips was evidence enough of that.
"Alright, Pic," Son expelled in a very low voice. "Whatever you've got, we'd better try it."
"It's not what I've got, monkey. It's what you've got."
At that statement, Son did turn his head, incomprehension written across the smooth planes of his face.
Piccolo's eyes were deadly serious when they met his. "You're the one who's gonna have to fight him. Alone."
* * *
Alone...he felt so alone.
Gohan could safely say that he had never been this afraid in his life. He didn't like where he was – it was a cold place, made of stone and silence, wrapped all around in shadows. It was so dark that the towering, ebony-clad wraith that walked before him was hard to find if he looked away even for a moment. Fear thrummed in his throat that the taller man would turn a corner or walk too fast, and he would lose him...
A pair of silver eyes became visible in even the barely-perceptible light in the corridor...two flat, distant stars from between wavery clouds. "Do not be afraid, child. I know these walks very well – no one will harm you here."
Gohan swallowed convulsively. "But I...I can't see, sir..."
"Catch hold of my cloak, and you'll know exactly where I am, won't you."
The child had to reach three times to find it the edge of it; it was like feeling around in darkened water for the pebbles at the bottom, and in the end, hardly worth it. The fabric was cool to his fingertips and soft to the touch. . . just more shadows to hold onto. "Th-thankyou, sir."
"Of course, child." And he continued walking. Gohan had to nearly jog to keep even with the man's long strides, even when they were slowed. His young legs strained with the effort of moving so quickly, and threatened to cave whenever they would pause.
"Where are we going, sir?"
"Somewhere. . . safe, child. Somewhere very safe."
"Will my daddy be there?"
"Eventually."
"And Piccolo-san?"
"Yes, of course. And. . . Piccolo-san."
Gohan didn't like the way that this man said "Piccolo-san." His voice had an eerie feeling to it. He decided not to ask him about it again.
"THERE you are," snapped a voice that made Gohan jump – a sharp growl that was at once exactly like Piccolo's and nothing like Piccolo's. Instinctively, he ducked behind the hem of the cloak as if it would somehow shield him from this newcomer, this massive creature that he did not recognize.
"Was I supposed to be somewhere else?" Tambourine answered, tone glib. He was not afraid of the other man – Gohan could tell that immediately in the way that any child would instinctively know. He stepped a little closer to the man who had brought him here, trying very hard not to make any noise. His nostrils twitched at the smell of rose petals and, faintly, the scent of old books.
"You know what I'm talking about. I want to know what's going on." The twin setting suns of the newcomers eyes were narrowed to mere slits...and it seemed almost to Gohan that the could feel the other's anger, not in waves, but in hammer strokes. It was strong enough to give him a headache.
"Ah, that. Well, currently, you and I are having a less than friendly discussion that I'm not entirely sure that I can follow...and that is all I know." He offered the other a slight, differential bow.
"Tambourine..." this last growled out like a promise of death. "I'm missing something. And you're going to tell me what it is."
"It seems to me that you're missing a number of somethings...care to be more specific, brother-mine?"
The other was quiet for a moment after that...nails drumming against his arm, faster and faster. He's nervous! Gohan realized with a start, eyes widening at the other being. Something's making him nervous...
Before he could wonder what it was, the ground jumped underneath him, and he fell, covering the back of his head with his hands, and not caring whether or not the rumble covered his semi-muffled whimper. There was a terrible feeling of electricity, just like there is during a thunder storm in an open field, and a feeling of the air rippling and buckling all around him – he was reminded, for one crazy moment, of a time when he had accidentally fallen into a river...
And then it was over, leaving the stone around them to tremble in its wake.
* * *
At the first tremor, Cymbal spat out a particularly impressive curse, widening his stance and throwing his arms just slightly out for balance's sake. Unlike Gohan, he had no doubt whatsoever about what that tremor was – no earthquake, no eruption, no sudden rending of the world. Though he had no real chi senses to speak of, and very little in the way of telepathy, that sudden, electric feeling in the air could be only one thing. A blast. A massive one. One the likes of which he hadn't felt since his father's death, or maybe even then.
As soon as the world returned more or less to its natural order, he rounded sharply on his brother. "What in the HELL was that all about?"
Tambourine was very complacently brushing a bit of ceiling-dust from his sleeves. "A chi blast, I would think."
Cymbal was reaching the absolute end of his patience, which was tantamount to the little bit of flame at the end of a fuse finally coming to the dynamite. He flexed his claws and briefly soothed his flaring temper with the mental image of his brother's head on a stake. Preferably with the eyes gouged out and the mouth stitched shut...
Inhale. Exhale. "Tambourine..."
The slighter demon met his eyes – and there were twin pinpricks of red in the pupils. It took Cymbal a moment to realize that it was his own eyes he was seeing there, his own reflection, and no silent rage on his brother's part.
He was almost disappointed.
"Brother," Tambourine said in a tone only slightly less exasperated than his own. "Why don't you open a window." And with that, he walked on, hands tucked neatly in his sleeves.
Cymbal felt his lip pulling back over his fangs, and in a rare and monumental act of control, pulled it back down. He pivoted on his heel in true military manner, storming back up the corridor until he came to one of the massive, bolted windows, flinging it open with a very satisfying CRASH against the old stone of the walls.
In the southeast, still reflected on the snow, a great light was only just beginning to dim – the air wavering there still, like the air above asphalt in the summertime, trembling with unnatural heat.
It looked like the only way to find out what strange things were passing. . .was to go find them himself.
* * *
Piccolo picked his way cautiously over the churned-up earth, skidding down the last little slope to where he could see a bit of orange flapping in the breeze. He made it a point to step on Raditzu's body on the way, planting a heel firmly just above the basketball-sized hole in the Saiya- jin's torso. The body didn't so much as twitch, and so the demon permitted himself to give in fully to his first, instinctive relief. The alien was dead.
And his enemy-temporarily-ally really wasn't much better off. Piccolo stopped, staring down at him, arms crossed, expression blank.
Son opened one eye, irrepressible grin still curving up one corner of his lips, the corner that wasn't dripping blood. "Did it work?"
"It worked."
"So he's dead?"
"Yeah."
"Great. So, you gonna kill me now?" And there was something almost joking in the man's tone.
Piccolo scowled, deeply. "I'm thinking about it."
Son actually chuckled – very softly, probably due to the broken ribs. "Well, you get back to me on that, right? I think I'm just gonna take a little nap right now." The eye closed, and he was out...no doubt unconscious.
Which was good for him, because Piccolo would probably have kicked him for his insolence otherwise.
"I hate you," he growled without any real conviction. "Damn you, I really do."
Which was why he'd waited a split second on that Makkenkosappo...why he'd waited for Raditzu to drop the other man's body before firing.
"Pathetic," he muttered. And didn't kill him in the next second. And kept right on not killing him for another minute after that. Drained, he told himself. I used too much energy on the other monkey. No chi left.
Of course, at this point, he could probably just put a foot down on the other's throat and smothered him. . .but he pretended not to think of that. And he was almost relieved when something gave him an excuse to stop dwelling on it.
An approaching chi. A high one – and fresh, untapped. He recognized it a bare second later, and ground his back teeth together in irritation. He'd forgotten that he'd actually sent word for that psychotic...
And in the back of his mind, a faint bit of suspicion flared. What had taken so long. He hated his brother, hated him with a passion, but at the same time, it just wasn't LIKE Cymbal to dally when there was fighting to be done. There was no real reason that it should have taken him this long, if Tambourine had told him about...
He brushed that thought aside to study in detail later...right then, he had a problem. One of blasted moral problems that he was having more and more of lately. He found himself glaring down at the once-thought-human at his feet. "I should kill you. It'd be far more honorable than what HE would do with you."
And that at last made sense to EVERY part of him, even the small, warring parts that he no longer understood. Cymbal hated this man more than he ever had, for reasons that Piccolo neither understood nor cared to understand – he'd rip him apart piece by piece, and that if Son was lucky.
But smothering him still seemed wrong. A chi blast would be right, but Piccolo wasn't up to that yet. Maybe slitting his throat with a claw? Maybe collapsing his chest, or...no, none of it seemed right.
He was dimly aware that he was behaving irrationally, but he couldn't seem to help himself. Death was death, after all. Did it really matter how it came?
Damn it all, he didn't have time for this. With a deep, frustrated growl, he actually kicked the man – right into some nearby shrubbery that had miraculously escaped destruction, hiding him from view. Then, with sharp, angry motions, he drew a bright, indigo line across his own palm with one of his talons. . .sprinkling blood liberally around said brush to disguise the man's living scent. . . and there would be enough Saiya-jin blood around that Cymbal shouldn't think twice about it.
Piccolo then turned to face the direction from which his brother would come, arms crossed over his chest, chin resting almost on his collarbone...and fixing the northern sky with a definitive glare.
He was tired, he was weakened from his experience, and he was harboring a silent fury with himself that matched nothing that he'd ever felt before. Maybe he could fight if need be, maybe not. . . but there was no fear in him. Not anymore.
One who deserves death should not shy from it when it comes.