Author's Note - sorry for all the shoddy formatting that's been going on lately with my stories. eats any breaks that I put into these stories with remarkable regularity. I've done what I can, but it still looks pretty rough - it won't allow lines, asterisks, or anything else that I'm plugging in here.

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It might only have been an hour, Krillen would realize later.

Really, even counting the fight, even counting the time that it had taken Cymbal to fly him out to that patch of land, even counting their brief conversation, and even counting the time it had taken to have that dagger driven through his foot, it probably couldn't have been longer than an hour and a half. Maybe two hours. Maybe.

It felt like an eternity. The small monk struggled every moment of it to keep conscious in spite of the warm, brown fuzz that threatened to wrap around him. He distracted himself by noticing things – the way the air smelled like rain, the coldness of the grass…the feeling of blood, tickly and annoying beneath his gi pants, an itch he couldn't reach. He noticed the way the rain felt when it first started to hit him in cold spikes. He would have tried to crawl away – he'd already determined that he could not reach the dagger – but he didn't know how closely Cymbal was watching him, and he didn't dare make him angry enough to go after Chichi again.

Mostly, though, he prayed to anyone who would listen that Goku would be careful. Better yet, that he wouldn't come to save him at all. Kami was supposed to be an old friend, after all. Surely he could talk him into at least one favor – especially given that it was sort of a family thing to start with.

His hopes of that vanished when he felt the energy, saw the bright orange at the side of his vision. Krillen turned his head, squinting through the now-falling rain at Goku – and his heart sank right down into the ground.

Goku had come alone. And he didn't even really look like Goku. Sure, he had the same crazy hair, the same tail, the same clothing – battered now, and torn. But the man was tired. He limped. His eyes were narrowed in determination, not to fight, but to keep moving. Krillen saw those eyes soften slightly, though, when they met his, saw that relieved grin…

Krillen's eyes burned. Go away, he thought, please – go!

The monkey-tailed warrior limped closer. Krillen had entertained some wild idea of yelling out to him just as he got close, so that he and Cymbal would take off at the same time, and Goku could maybe beat the other warrior back to his home…but the monk could see that this would fail, now. As beaten up as Son Goku was, he'd never even be able to keep Cymbal in sight in a flat-out race, much less catch him… "It's a trap," he mouthed. But he didn't know whether or not Goku would be able to see it through the rain.

Goku seemed not to notice…came closer…closer…started to kneel. RUN! Krillen shrieked in his mind. But of course, it was already too late. He saw a blur of black and purple, and he could do nothing but flinch at the wet, bruising sound of collision.

Cymbal hadn't used an energy blast, Krillen realized. Goku might have sensed that. Instead, the demon chose to plow into him from behind, close with him, use his superior weight, his claws…the two of them veered off crazily, moving through the clearing with Goku trying to get space, and Cymbal apparently unwilling to let him.

Krillen twisted frantically, trying to reach that dagger – but it had been driven in the arch of his foot from behind, and from nearly facedown…the monk couldn't get a grip on it, and when he did touch it…it was so slick with blood and rain that he couldn't move it.

What he would have done anyway was beyond him.

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Truthfully, Son Goku had been expecting some kind of attack at first. That was before he'd seen Krillen, stretched out and apparently dead in a clearing. Son had thought it a message – a sign that Cymbal had left him, something to mess with his head. It wasn't the first time that a Daimaou had done something like that. Bulma had called it psychological warfare. To him, it was simply 'wrong.'

He landed carefully – his balance wasn't up to its usual par – and began his slow walk to where the smaller man was stretched out. He was glad to see that Krillen was alive, and even conscious. He had been expecting much, much worse. Maybe this was a good sign, a sign that Cymbal, like Piccolo, wasn't quite as bad as he could be.

Goku couldn't help but notice that Krillen was shaking, hard – was looking at him with wide, fixed, horrified eyes. His lips might even have been moving, but Goku's eyes would not focus enough to see them. He smiled a little, hoping to reassure his smaller friend. He would have said something if he weren't so…

Son had a flash of something – wrong. It wasn't a long flash, not long enough to be a premonition or even an instinct. It was just a sudden prickling of the hairs on his tail, a sensation like that of an impending static shock. If he had been in better shape, it would have been enough for him to get airborne and avoid the first strike entirely. All he had time to do at that particular moment was brace himself, bend his knees, and attempt to sidestep whatever-it-was.

In one respect, it worked – as the full force of whatever-it-was didn't immediately bear him to the ground. Still, the force on his back in passing was bruising, and he felt something deep and hooked tear into the flesh of his shoulder and back through his gi.

Claws, he thought, suppressing the predator-and-prey response that threatened to surface. He spun as best he could and threw a sidekick directly into his attacker's ribs, and was disconcerted when the thing stayed right on top of him, in spite of the heavy gasp that came out at the force of his blow.

Goku knew who it was, then. He kicked him again, harder, threw a flat-palmed strike at his face, pushed back. He felt the claws come free with a sound like bread being torn as they furrowed down his arm and around his side. The gashes they left weren't life-threatening, but they were long and deep – they would bleed freely, sting in rain and mud, stiffen his muscles. Which was probably exactly what Cymbal wanted.

He didn't even see the chi blast – it came in low and fast, propelled into his side by a body-shot punch. His right half burned, he had rain in his eyes, he couldn't see. Instinctively, he turned as he stepped back, throwing a crescent kick at the demon, who still seemed unwilling to back up, to let him have enough space to think.

Goku felt nothing but air when he kicked, and without putting his foot down, he lashed out to the side. That time, he felt the kick land, but only glancingly – not like he felt the other's foot implanting firmly in his back, not like he felt the ground when he slammed into it. Not like he felt the small stones in the mud cut his hands, or his back when he rolled to avoid the stomping foot he knew would come, and it did.

It got confusing after that. The rain was steady, the ground slick, the air…thick, impossible to see through. He gave up on thinking, concentrating only on his breathing, the steady in-out, on finding his opponent. Goku thought that it was interesting that, as it went on, he could HEAR the two of them connecting, but he couldn't really feel it anymore. Not when he struck the demon, not when the demon struck him. And the blows were coming so fast, by then, that they were almost blending together, like the sound of distant rain, or thunder….hey, is that lightning?...

No, it wasn't lightning – it was a chi blast. Goku blinked as the form in front of him literally disappeared, like a ball after it's hit with a baseball bat, and you have to turn your head to find it again. He did, swaying numbly, wondering when his legs had decided to stop working. He watched in mute disbelief as Cymbal handspringed out of the attack, his hands skidding along the muddy ground before he snapped his legs down, driving his feet into the mud like a pair of springs and launching himself directly at whatever had fired at him -

Piccolo, Goku thought, mildly surprised when he realized that his (former?) rival was hovering in the air above them both, arms held rigid in a defensive posture, eyes betraying how shocked he was at his own actions. I didn't think you were coming…

But he had. And he probably needed help. Goku watched, transfixed, as the two of them closed on one another, realizing that if he let them, they'd rip each other apart. He couldn't let that happen. He had to do something. Son bent his knees, eyes fastened on the two warriors, hoping he still had the strength to fight.

It was then that fate decided to blindside him. Fate in the form of a break in the cloud-cover that spilled slim, milky rays down over the two fighters in the sky – causing Son's eyes to widen and dilate with the brightness of it. They grew great and glossy, transfixed, darkening like a cat's pupils, fascinated by the whiteness of it.

His eyes drank it in, drowned in it, glowed with it until they too were small moons – and in his throat was a sound like the ending of worlds.

break

Piccolo experienced a moment's limbo when he saw his elder brother flying toward him, the red glow of his chi all the more apparent in the rain – it gave it ambience, lit that part of the sky like a bonfire – not like his own chi, a pale blue now, for some reason.

Some part of him had expected it to go differently. Some part of him had expected the other to snarl at his presence, snap out some warning of upcoming destruction, and fly off. That part had been wrong.

He lashed out with a roundhouse that Cymbal dodged neatly. Cymbal returned with a chi blast that Piccolo had been expecting. The two of them circled each other after that, a breath, two. I'm crazy, Piccolo thought, I have to be – what am I doing?

It didn't matter, he realized – as Cymbal moved to close, and he moved to meet him. It was too late to second-guess himself. It was too late.

They came together like a bird and a windshield.

Piccolo had sparred with Cymbal before. He knew his style, he knew his maneuvers – he knew them all as well as Cymbal knew his. He had beaten him more than once. He had even, on more than one occasion, fought Cymbal, Drum, and Piano all together as a sort of training exercise. He had beaten them that way more times than he could count. Of the two of them, he was the stronger. He knew that. This – should have been easier.

It took him a moment to realize why he was coming out of the exchange worse – why nothing he did seemed to matter. He could see his brother's eyes in the rain, pupil-less and glowing with an eerie focus. Piccolo had always been too controlled to let himself slip into the kind of berserker state that his brother seemed to have entered. Cymbal, he realized, was half-mad with it – he wasn't feeling the rain, the blood, the blows. Piccolo half-wondered if he even knew who he was fighting, or if, in his brother's mind, all comers wore orange uniforms and had monkey tails…

Piccolo grabbed the other by the shoulders abruptly and pushed him, hitting him on the way out with a spinning kick. He felt ribs crack under his foot. It made no difference save that, when his brother came forward again, his bared teeth were streaked with his own blood. And yet, it was not a mad charge, nothing like that – as the other sidestepped the feint, seeking another opportunity to close.

I have to kill him, Piccolo realized. There's no other way to stop him now. This, he realized, was going to be much easier said than done. Piccolo wondered if he could be optimistic enough to think that Son Goku would have had enough sense to get the Hell out of the way. He wondered what was wrong with him, that he would think of that in the middle of a fight that had a very great potential to kill him.

A fist impacted his face, forcing him to focus on the task at hand. Killing his brother. He spun with him in the sky, pushed away from him – and had the strangest sensation that something big was about to happen.

Cymbal apparently thought so, too – because Piccolo saw his eyes widen dramatically, and he saw the older demon twist in the air like a cat does, when it falls. Even so, it wasn't quite enough as something that looked suspiciously like a chi buzz-saw flew by him, cutting deeply into his side on the way through. Piccolo had just enough time to twist out of its way himself – and felt something wet splatter his cheek that was not rain. It was so hot that it burned. What the Hell was that, he wondered, watching the chi…thing…continue on its trajectory, spinning crazily, sawing a few trees as it flew out of sight. They fell neatly, clean-edged like logs from a lumber mill.

Piccolo wheeled in the air to face his brother, prepared for another attack – only to find that the madness seemed to have gone out of the other. Cymbal was hovering, a hand clamped over his side in an ineffectual, automatic effort to stem the bleeding. Already, blood was pouring down his side, steaming in the cool air, spurting rhythmically. His gaze was not on Piccolo, but somewhere on the ground. "That little bastard," he said, an odd grin curling his lips. He sounded at once furious and faintly admiring. "That little shit-faced, snivelling bastard."

Cymbal raised a hand as if to blow the offending, bald-headed human off the face of the earth – and froze. Piccolo had enough time to realize that this was unusual. Cymbal, whatever his many, many faults were, did not count panic among them. He never froze. Hardly ever even hesitated. In fact, if anything, he was too brash, too incautious…

It was then that everything went terribly, terribly wrong. A roar such as Piccolo had never heard shook the sky, sending him back several feet. His head rang as if with church bells.

"What in the HELL," he growled. "What NOW!"

He hadn't been expecting an answer – but he got one, anyway. A head reared up out of the forest, coming to level with him. Piccolo found himself staring down the long snout of something that was a little bit like a monkey – and yet nothing like anything of earth, not just in size. The muzzle was too long, too savage, fit to hold rows of jagged teeth, bare to avoid getting caught in gore at the crunching of meat. The eyes, set far back to avoid gouging claws, were milk-white and wild. The beast grinned at him ferally – as a cat might a mouse.

So, Piccolo thought sourly. THIS is how I'm going to die.

"Piccolo!" a vaguely familiar voice – the midget human's, wasn't it? – bellowed. "Get out of his way!"

The onetime demon needed no further encouragement – he shot straight up in the air. It was almost not enough as the monster's jaws opened wide, uncontrolled chi flooding between car-length fangs as the creature vomited out an energy blast fit to demolish the better part of a continent. The shock-waves nearly capsized Piccolo in the air – only a very tight control on his own chi kept him from spiraling off or…worse…being sucked into the path of the beam.

"I refuse to accept this," he hissed under his breath. "Where the Hell did it come from? This thing CAN'T have been on earth, I would have seen it before…" After all, he thought crazily, where do you hide a building-sized ape with acid reflux?

The answer, unexpectedly, came from his brother…though it was not directed at him.

"It's real," Cymbal hissed. "I'm seeing it. It's real this time."

Piccolo turned his head sharply to look at Cymbal…trying, at the same time, to keep an eye on the monkey, which seemed temporarily preoccupied with stomping the ground and roaring wordlessly at the moon.

To say that the elder demon looked bad was an understatement. He was barely emerald, just left of lime – face and skin unnaturally pale from the blood that continued to pour more or less unchecked from his side. Still, his eyes were fixed on the thing – and his lips, purple with his own blood, were pulled into a manic grin. "Monkey's a monkey, right? What else would he be. Unless I'm making it up. Could be that, too."

He's seen this before! Piccolo realized, latching onto the only thing around him that made any kind of sense. But if Cymbal had seen it before, then why couldn't he remember…why didn't any of his sire's memories warn him about mile-high monkeys?

But that phrase…mile-high…and Cymbal, looking like that…

Could THIS be the transformation that Tambourine had mentioned once, as an aside…so long ago? The warning attached to, "oh, by the way – I wouldn't harass him after dark if I were you?" The one that Raditzu had mentioned…the one that he'd brought up to Cymbal exactly once. The one where he'd asked about giant apes, and the other had waved his hand at him dismissively, saying that nothing like that had ever happened.

And why hadn't his sire ever seen it, if it was so real?

Then there was a memory. And it hit him like a bucket of cold water to the face.

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"Do you mean to tell me," Daimaou no Pikiro growled slowly, "That a human – no, not a human. A LITTLE BOY, Cymbal – was too much for you?"

Cymbal was standing before him…slightly red-tinged, as seen through his sire's eyes. He looked as if he'd been through some sort of war. He was swaying, in fact, barely keeping his feet at all – probably concussed. Blood still trickled from a conspicuous, purpling wound on his temple.

"And the only excuse that you can offer," Daimaou continued, impatience tainting the memory like salt in water, "is that when he saw you, he changed into a mile-high monkey with chi abilities."

"Sire," Cymbal said. He spoke slowly, voice slurring heavily, eyes slightly unfocused. "I know it sounds crazy, but it's what I saw."

"So tell me, Cymbal…if he had this sort of ability, then why didn't he use it to save his teacher? Or perhaps the runt-friend he ran around with. For that matter, why didn't he use it to prevent me from using the dragonballs to wish myself young again? Don't you think that would have made sense?"

He was using a tone that meant danger, and Cymbal knew it. The younger demon averted his eyes. "I don't know why, sire. I…it doesn't make sense. You're right. But it's what happened…" he faltered slightly, brow creasing…fingertips lightly coming to his temple.. "Or - what I think happened."

Daimaou leaned back on his heels, digesting this – feeling the frustration twist in his gut, a slow ember. Finally, he turned to Tambourine, who had gone with him. In the past, his youngest son had not proven the most honest of the lot – but he also had a vested interest in staying alive, and corroborating Cymbals story, if it were untrue, would not be conducive to that at all.

"Tambourine," he had said in his calm voice, "Is this true?"

Tambourine had looked at Cymbal for just a moment – Daimaou caught a flash of something in his eyes that was almost sympathy, as if he wanted to agree with him, say that was what had happened. However, after a moment, Tambourine dropped his eyes. "He…hit his head very hard, sire," he admitted finally in a soft voice. "He would not lie to you willingly, but…"

"Enough," Daimaou growled, annoyed. "I've heard enough. I'll deal with this myself."

Cymbal looked up at that, back in the here-and-now, eyes widening uncharacteristically. "Don't do it, sire," he said. "Let us try again."

"I have no more time for mistakes," he said, beginning his walk toward the battlements.

"Sire, there's something not right about that kid," Cymbal pressed. "I don't know what it is, but he can't possibly be human." A touch more urgently, "He's dangerous."

"More dangerous than you, apparently."

"But sire…"

"No buts, Cymbal. Now come, all of you. I'll show you how it's done.

break

Piccolo was forcibly brought out of his reverie by an ominous crunch – the familiar sound of bone snapping. He turned his head in time to see Cymbal fly back-first through a tree.

"DAMN it," he growled, realizing that his brother was possibly the only person around who might know how to stop the…thing. And they would have to stop it. Even now, the thing was tearing great gashes in the surface of the planet, leaving them like open wounds. Piccolo had the eerie suspicion that it could very well rip the very world apart, and might just be mindless enough to do it. He reversed himself in the air – fortunately, as it turned out, for he barely avoided a clawed swipe – and dove after his brother.

He wasn't all that hard to find. The elder demon was in the process of extricating himself from a trench, movements sharp, businesslike, disconnected. Piccolo did not land, but pulled up in front of him, hovering. "Alright," he said. "You've seen this thing before. How do we stop it?"

Cymbal laughed outright, flashing moonlit fangs at him as a wolf would. Piccolo was more than a little alarmed to see how glazed his eyes were. "You believe me now?" he asked, a grin in his voice. "Hell, even I don't believe me…"

Piccolo realized that his brother had no idea who he was talking to – that he might very well be eight or nine years in the past, speaking to his lord. Oh well, maybe he'll be more COOPERATIVE when he's delirious, Piccolo thought, glancing over his shoulder at the monkey, who was in the process of turning a fair swath of forest into toothpicks. "I believe you," he growled. "Now how the Hell do we get rid of it?"

Cymbal was still grinning manically. "Imagine it away?"

Not fully knowing what prompted him, Piccolo reached out, fisting both hands in his older brother's gi top, and hauling him up so that they were standing nose to nose. "How. Did. You. Stop. It. Last. Time," he growled.

Cymbal's gaze, deep red, focused on his. Piccolo read brief confusion. "Lord," he said, "there's something wrong with your eyes."

At the rate he's going, he's going to keel over from blood loss before I get anything out of him. "NEVERMIND the damn eyes, how did you do it?"

Cymbal averted his gaze up and to the right…looking vaguely sheepish. "I didn't. I don't know how it happened, tell you the truth."

"What do you MEAN you don't know?"

A wry smirk curved his brother's lips. "He knocked me out. Didn't see the change-back." Abruptly, Cymbal's eyes widened. He put both hands on Piccolo's shoulders and pushed him hard enough to send him back several feet – throwing himself back in the opposite direction. A second later, a giant foot crashed down precisely where they'd just been. It was this that really convinced Piccolo that his brother was years in the past – had he known who he was dealing with, he might very well have pulled him UNDER the foot of that monkey.

Piccolo hit the ground and started rolling, continuing until he could get his feet under him and get back into the air. It was barely enough. He felt the wind of another irritated swipe from the monkey-thing, twisted in time not to have the things fangs close around him – and again found himself staring into the monkey's face. The face that was made of all things wild that roamed the world after dark. The twin moons that were his eyes, like a pair of headlights on a speeding car, catching, holding, closer…

MOVE! Some half-buried instinct screamed inside his brain. He complied, shaken, feeling a claw tear through the fabric in his leg, sending him spiraling back toward the earth. All efforts to right himself failed – he wound up skidding a fair distance on one side, stopping flat on his back not to far away. He lay still initially, hearing that the thing was moving in a different direction – which was good.

He was pretty sure it was going to take a few seconds for his double vision to clear, anyway.

A pair of small, rounded, bald heads with wide eyes peered down at him in unison.

"Ack!" Piccolo growled, sitting up sharply. "What the HELL is your problem!"

Krillen skittered back several feet as well – eyes growing wider still, which the demon would have thought impossible before. "Geeze, Piccolo, I was just trying to see if you were dead! I mean, um…if you were alive. I mean, I hoped you were because I sure can't stop that thing…"

"Shut up," he growled, swiping an irritated hand across his eyes – which, at least, seemed to be focusing a little.

"Shutting up," Krillen said hurriedly.

"That thing. That's the idiot, right?" Piccolo asked, relieved that he was only seeing ONE giant monkey at that moment….and only one slightly-blurry human.

"Idiot?"

"Son."

Krillen laughed nervously. "That's him, alright."

"How do we undo it?"

"I don't know," Krillen admitted after a moment. "I think it has something to do with the moon, I guess…his grandpa used to tell him never to go out after dark, or the giant monkey would get him, so…"

"Right," Piccolo growled. He cast a particularly evil glare at the monkey…thing. "Why did I want this planet again?"

Krillen opened his mouth as if to answer, but Piccolo waved it off. "Nevermind," the former demon growled, lurching his way to his feet. "I know how to fix this."

It took more effort than he wanted to launch himself into the air. Worse, it attracted the monkey's attention. The beast seemed to grin at him, moving forward with great, slow stomps like a man walking on the moon, great arms waving, body lurching.

"Faster," Piccolo thought, "move faster."

He was above the monkey's reach, though not for long. That was alright. He didn't need long. He closed his eyes, bringing two fingers to his forehead, seeking the calm that he needed. In the back of his mind, he could hear the creature coming closer, hear the great heart beating like a volcano, feel the head of it. None of that mattered. With the creatures claws mere inches from him, he let go the blast, directly through the opening in the clouds that had caused all the trouble to start in the first place. In the distance, the moon exploded like a stage light being hit with a beer bottle. The sky turned white.

The mere force of the creature's pained roar sent Piccolo end over end through the air. He was getting more than a little sick of that – but it was beyond helping. By the time he'd righted himself, the night's darkness had returned. Colored spots danced in front of his dazzled eyes for a moment or two…but they cleared before too long, and the giant monkey was gone. Utterly, completely gone.

For a moment, Piccolo allowed himself to be shocked that something had actually worked. Only then did he feel the ache in his own limbs. He was beyond tired…even continuing to fly would be a challenge he didn't want. He allowed himself to sink slowly through the air, landing heavily in the mud next to a recently-blasted crater.

"Ow," he thought when his feet finally touched the ground.

It didn't take him long to locate either the human or the Saiyan. It was the color, he decided, that goddamned ugly, eye-gouging orange. Damned impractical most of the time, except when he actually wanted to find someone wearing it. The human…Krillen, he thought vaguely, his name is Krillen…was staring at him in horror, temporary bravado gone, scooting back in the mud as if he expected him to charge that very second. Son, in contrast, was standing in the red-hued mud by the crater, skin marble-white in the moonlight, looking slightly dazed. He looked up at him and grinned, sort of vaguely.

"Hey," he said. "Changed your mind about coming, I guess." The earth-raised Saiyan put his hand behind his head, blinking owlishly. "What happened, anyway?"

Piccolo closed his eyes for a moment, and envisioned himself punting the other squarely in the face. It was a vision he indulged in for longer than he probably should have before he put it away. He had to concentrate now on walking. It was a slow process. The ground was against him, pulling his feet, making his footing unsure – but, teeth grinding audibly, he made his way over to the other, stopping perhaps a foot from him. He heard Krillen gasp, start to scramble to his feet. Piccolo ignored him.

"I'm done," he announced finally, in what he hoped was a tone that would broke NO argument. "I don't care if there's a whole army of crazed space aliens planning to take over the planet and turn us all into harem guards. I don't care if all our stupid relatives decide to get together for a family reunion and it's my turn to bring the potato salad. I don't even care," he continued, his voice growing in volume, "if your damn stupid kid's been kidnapped again! No. More. Understand?"

It did his mood no good when the other man just…well…smiled. Not grinned. Smiled. Smiled like some children do on Christmas morning. "Sure, Pic," he said. "You're right." The other man swayed slightly, words running together oddly. "S'been some day, huh?"

"If you faint, I'm not catching you," Piccolo growled.

"Sorry, Pic," Goku said. He put a hand behind his head sheepishly. "Don't think m'going to, though."

Piccolo eyed him dubiously.

"No, I mean it. M'okay," he said. Right before he fell over.

Piccolo honestly wasn't sure whether or not he would have carried through on his threat about not catching him. He was pretty sure he meant it at the time, but in the end, he didn't have a lot of choice. The older man fell against him, and he had no option but to curl his arms around him. The weight, though, that was a problem…he houffed in annoyance as he lost his footing, landing flat on his ass in the mud, the other half-sprawled on top of him.

There was, the former demon decided, absolutely no justice in the universe. "Damn it," he said.

Only then did he notice all the blood. More of it than there should have been. A lot more. And Son just wasn't as warm as he usually was. He was limp, too, like a dishrag, breaths soft and almost impossible to feel…

Piccolo shook him, hard. "No," he snapped. "You don't get to do this, asshole. You don't get to drag me all over the free world, ruin my damn life, and then up and DIE on me."

Goku stirred a little. "Mmph" he said. "M'not dying." One eye opened, blearily – not so colorful as usual, closer to black. Piccolo noticed, with eerie, clinical detachment, that the corneas were fogging. "Thought you weren't catching me."

"I didn't, moron. You fell on me."

"Oh. Sorry." Goku grinned at him sheepishly, and Piccolo gave real consideration to grinding his face into the mud and leaving him there. "Didn't mean to worry you."

"The only thing I was worried about was getting your blood all over me again. Smell NEVER comes out," he huffed. "Now enough of this nonsense." The Namekian growled, trying to get his legs under himself. "You're going home."

"Home sounds good," Goku agreed. "But we can't forget Krillen."

Piccolo rolled his eyes. "Define 'we'," he grumbled.

"Well, I meant you and me, of course," the Saiyan said with a wide grin.

Piccolo snorted. "There IS no 'we.' There's you, and there's me, and we're both in the same place. That doesn't make us 'we.' It just makes us…here."

Goku laughed, easing back a little…slowly, Piccolo noticed, so slowly. "I can't follow that at all," he said.

There was a moment's silence, when even the rain didn't seem to matter. There was a thin chi beam of red light from somewhere in the forest…there was the rushing sound of someone taking off. There was a widening of charcoal-colored eyes, and then Son Goku was sprawled across Piccolo's legs, staring blankly at the ground.

Piccolo didn't need to check this time. He knew that he was dead.

Son Goku was dead.

It stood to reason that someone had killed him. It stood to reason that someone had shot him in the back. It stood to reason that the someone was Cymbal, that the someone was, even at that moment, running away, and that he would never have a better chance to fight him.

It stood to reason that Son Goku's death wasn't necessarily a bad thing, that the nightmare that had been his life for the past few years could well be over now. It stood to reason that the least thing he should ever be concerned about was his dead enemy lying there like that, eyes open and fixed, still with that odd sort of smile on his face.

What did not stand to reason at all, Piccolo noted, was that he was still sitting there beside him, in the mud, in the rain, for no reason at all. What did not stand to reason was that he spoke to him twice. "Son," he said, softly. It had alarmed him to hear something approaching panic in his own voice.

When the Saiyan did not reply, did not move, he spoke again. He said the next word so quietly even he almost did not hear it… "Goku?"

It was perfectly reasonable that the other, being dead, did not answer.

It was completely illogical that he still waited for him to answer, to move, to do anything - a pain such as he had rarely felt in the back of his throat.