Chapter 12: Christmas Around the Globe
Monday 25th December Age 791
Snow had begun to fall in the lower mountainous area just south of Parsley City, close to where Noca was travelling through. Even though the young Saiyan may have lived in a mountainous area himself, this was a lot colder than where he came from. While he had experienced snow a few times in his life, this was different. He wasn't used to how much snow was falling. The air grew much colder than Noca was prepared for. He was freezing. He knew he should have packed much better, but then again, he was never truly prepared for this journey.
He was hoping to have made it to Parsley City and find somewhere to stay, at least for a normal night's rest. The last village he stopped through was nice, and the people were helpful, but nobody warned him the weather might change like this. All they said was that Parsley City was located nearby. Noca glanced down at the Capsule watch he was given as a freebie in the last village (they were always so generous) and saw the temperature was getting lower. He needed to take a rest somewhere, but there was nowhere appropriate. He needed something warm.
The young man was lucky enough to spot a cave and pushed through the cold and exhaustion to get there. It appeared to go quite deep in, meaning that Noca would be safe from the snow outside. As he moved through, he could feel the cold air getting weaker and further. Sure, it wasn't exactly warm, but the temperature was allowing Noca to relax himself a bit better. He decided he didn't want to go too deep in and stopped to set up some sort of camp.
He dropped to the ground and sighed in relief. He needed to sleep, but first he needed to set up some sort of heat source. Luckily, that Capsule Corp. employee was kind enough to give out a Capsule heater too. (too generous). It had its own power source so Noca just set it up and turned it on and sat close. The heat coming out wasn't great, but it was still something. Noca started to get comfortable.
Now that the snow wasn't pounding against his face as he walked the mountain path Noca could clearly check his watch. He was surprised to see that he had been travelling through the night. It was six in the morning. Noca seemed surprised by that, he wasn't even tired and had been walking for about eight hours straight. Noca also noticed the date, but it didn't seem to resonate in his brain. None of the days mattered at this point. He just took his watch off and set it next to the radiator, ensuring that it was completed dried out.
He sat in silence for a few minutes, unsure of what to do with himself.
"I guess I could train…"
The cold weather wasn't just confined to the isolation of the mountains, there was a cool breeze that blew through the large West City on this dark Christmas Morning. Most people were still asleep in their beds. Hardly any lights were on throughout the city, there were no cars driving through. While not everybody celebrated Christmas in this region, it was still classed as a Holiday and most everything was closed for the day.
For the holiday, a few familiar faces had decided to stay in one place. Capsule Corp. was full this year. With Gohan, Videl, Goten, Chi-Chi, and Pan all decided to spend this time with Bulma, Vegeta, Trunks, and Bra. Even Marron and Valese would be joining later in the day after spending most of it with their respective families.
Pan and Bra were staying in the same room, and as usual, Bra was the first to get up. The very excitable girl always liked to be ready for the day, no matter what was going. Pan, on the other hand, would have preferred more sleep. That just wasn't possible when Bra was around.
Once Bra was finally successful it getting Pan awake, the grouchy black-haired girl sat with her eyes half open, glaring at Bra.
"Every time I stay here… why?" Pan said, breaking into a yawn right at the end. She stretched her arms and sat at the end of the bed. While Pan hated being woken up, she did also hate wasting the day, so it was a good thing that Bra woke her up, even if Pan would be in a bad mood for a brief moment.
"Merry Christmas, Pan!" Bra said, a wide smile on her face. Pan glanced up at her friend and smirked weakly, as she continued to stretch. Bra grabbed on to Pan's outstretched hand and pulled her to her feet. Pan's eyes went wide as this happened. She was in no way prepared for that and lost balance almost pulling both her and Bra to the floor. She steadied out but accidently gripped Bra's hand too hard. "OW!"
"Oh, sorry…" Pan said, letting go of Bra's hand and standing up straight. Pan looked at Bra shaking her hand because of the little pain and she chuckled to herself a little. "Maybe don't wake me up early in future, or drag me when I'm not expecting it."
Bra started to rub her hand, staring at Pan with a pout. Pan smiled at her best friend, showing she wasn't really mad, but making it clear that Bra should indeed be more careful.
"Fine. Sorry," Bra said, turning away. "Now come on, let's go downstairs."
"Can I go to the bathroom first?" Pan asked, although it wasn't a question she needed answering. Bra let Pan go to bathroom and waited patiently for her to finish up so they could head downstairs together.
The girls went down the stairs quietly, so not to wake anyone else up just yet. It was half past six in the morning, after all. Too early for some people. A point that Pan had already made abundantly clear. Before they got to the living room Bra turned to Pan.
"What do you think Santa's left for us?" Bra asked, in a very innocent way. Pan knew Bra was kidding, so she did her best to go along with it.
"I don't know, but I'm sure some of it will at least be Capsule Corp. branded, which makes me question where he got it from?" Pan said, making a joke out of the situation. "Did he buy it from your mom just to gift it to you?"
"Oh yeah Pan, very funny, haha," Bra said sarcastically. Pan shook her head.
"I'm sure we got exactly what we wanted, and maybe some other surprises. Santa knows us both very well," Pan said, smiling at her friend. Bra beamed back as they finally got to the living room and snuck in. Well, Bra was sneaking around for some reason, maybe trying to make a game out of it. Pan decided to play along in her own way and lifted off of the ground and hovered just behind Bra.
Bra was surprised that she couldn't hear Pan behind her and turned around to see what was going on, only for Pan to crash into her and both girls fell to the ground.
"Ow… Bra, why did you stop?" Pan asked, standing back up.
"I didn't think you were behind me, why were you so quiet?" Bra questioned, hands on hips.
"I was flying in, just hovering above the ground to play along with whatever sneaky game you were playing," Pan said, chuckling lightly, finding the amusement in their clash. Bra scoffed and turned around to look over at the Christmas tree that had been set up. The lights were already on and there were in fact gifts under the tree.
"Well, looks like Santa has been!" Bra exclaimed, although in a hushed voice. She turned to Pan and smiled. Pan shook her head.
"No, I think it was that guy," Pan said, pointing across the room to an armchair where a certain Saiyan Prince lay, apparently napping and unaware of the girls' presence. Both girls looked to each other and laughed quietly while approaching the tree. All they had to do was wait for everyone else to wake up and come down to start their Christmas day. Bra started pulling the presents out from under the tree and began to organise them based on who they were for. Pan meanwhile, sat beside Bra and was watching Vegeta, expecting him to wake up at any moment. He twitched a couple of times and Pan was almost certain he was just pretending to be asleep.
While Bra was distracted, Pan took an ornament off of the tree and with all her force she threw it towards Vegeta to test her theory. At the last moment, Bra noticed.
"What are you doing?!" Bra asked, just as Pan threw the ornament. It sailed towards Vegeta, and just as Pan predicted, he caught it and opened his eyes.
"Good Morning, girls," Vegeta said, initially glaring at the two, but it formed into a small smirk.
"Morning, daddy! Merry Christmas," Bra greeted, running over and giving her father a hug. Vegeta put one arm around her and made a huff sound. He wasn't about to say it back. Pan smiled at him in a teasing way. It was only in times like this he would typically show a softer side.
Back in the mountains, Noca remained seated by his heater, just staring at the light that was emanating from it. The small light did enough to illuminate the space around Noca, and the heat coming from it was comforting. The young Saiyan felt protected enough. He decided his situation, for the moment, was manageable.
He sat down, crossed his legs, and began to clear his mind. The peace of his isolation and emptiness of his surroundings was perfect for another attempt at some meditation. He wanted to try and learn to better control his senses with the hopes of being able to find himself a route towards West City. He had sort of been blindly travelling for some time and just heading in a direction rather than towards anything. It would help to at least have some real idea of where he was going. His senses started to come through whenever his instinct decided to kick in, but that typically happened in times of stress. He was certain Goku would be able to help him with that.
Noca closed his eyes and started to search through his mind. He was looking for his current position. Trying to visualise his surroundings while his eyes remained closed. It didn't take him long to create a copy of the cave's layout inside his head. He saw it as clear as day. This wasn't just him imagining his location, he was truly visualising it.
He felt the instincts within him reacting and he decided to stand up, but it was only within the confines of his mind that he did that. In reality, he was still sitting in the same spot in that cave facing his heater. That fact didn't play into Noca's thoughts as he continued to move. It was almost as if nothing held him back and he started to walk towards the cave's exit. He stepped out onto the mountain path and even though the snow continued to fall, and the wind was strong, Noca managed to look past that and carry on walking along the path.
The young Saiyan came to a stop when there was a fork in the path. There were two different choices. One path that started to lead further up the mountain, higher up. The secondary route was the complete opposite and appeared to lead further down. It didn't take a genius to figure out that the higher up the mountain went the further Noca would get from West City. The decision would be easy and Noca would follow the path that lead down the mountain.
But that didn't work in his vision. Noca's instinct seemed to tell him something different and he turned to face the upward path. He tried to pull himself away, but he couldn't stop. The young Saiyan started to walk towards the upward path and followed the route. As he got higher up the strength of the wind grew and a sudden powerful gust shot towards Noca, impairing his vision and making it harder to move.
He was unable to move any further forward but, in the distance, he could see something. A building built into the side of the mountain. Like a sort of mansion. It intrigued Noca and he wanted to move further forward but found the strength of the wind worked as some sort of barrier, stopping him completely. It grew stronger completely impairing Noca's vision and with some sort of jolt Noca was shocked out of his meditative state.
His eyes opened and he could see clearly again, only this time he was back in the cave. He looked around and noticed nothing had changed. He was in the exact same spot, but now he had the knowledge of where he could go. The path that headed south down the mountain would be ideal, but that northern path, and that building, it intrigued him. His curiosity was definitely getting the best of him and Noca stood up, walking to the cave opening. He looked outside and tried to see how far up the mountain was visible from his position. The answer was not much, but the snow was starting to slow down, just a little, although the wind remained strong.
Noca continued to stare into the distance, looking up and down the mountain path and knew he had to do something. Maybe it was overconfidence or maybe it was the fear of falling behind and failing, but he needed to keep going. He needed to start training soon, he couldn't spend all this time out in the wilderness on his own.
The young Saiyan packed his things and started to head out of the cave. He started walking along the path and instantly he knew where he needed to go and headed towards the fork in the path. He looked in both directions and told himself to walk down the path as opposed to up, but he ended up listening to the pull of his instinct and headed up. Towards the strange building. Away from his destination. As he moved further along the path, he noticed that it was a lot rockier, and more unstable than his vision had told him. The temperature continued to drop.
"This is gonna be tough."
Finally, everyone staying at Capsule Corp. for the holiday was finally awake and had made their way downstairs to begin the day. Everyone was sitting in the kitchen as they prepared a big breakfast. Chi-Chi had taken control and was ordering everyone around, making them pass her the things she needed. That's not to say people didn't want to help. The Son family were the ones preparing the food, it seemed. Even Pan was getting in there and helping her grandmother.
Bulma was doing her best to help, but she was never the best at this kind of stuff. She had pretty much always had the staff there to cook for her and the family, although Vegeta did like to get hands on and prepare his own food most of the time. He had a specific diet after all. Vegeta never liked to admit it but he did appreciate Chi-Chi's cooking. She was very knowledgeable with cooking for Saiyans. Vegeta liked to watch to see if he could pick up on what made Chi-Chi's cooking standout.
Trunks and Bra were there in the kitchen too, but they were sitting out of the way and letting the experts do what they needed. Although, Trunks wasn't enjoying flicking through the channels on the TV. It managed to draw Vegeta's attention as the annoying sounds of Christmas television emanated through to his ears.
"Will you shut off that crap?!" Vegeta yelled over at his son. "Everything is terrible at this time of year. I hate this meaningless holiday!"
"Aw cheer up Vegeta," Goten said, walking over with a mug of something. "Here. Have some coffee."
"No, don't give him coffee," Trunks said, acting like Goten was doing something very wrong. Goten stopped and turned to his friend with an inquisitive look. "I think he'll prefer a glass of warm milk."
Goten started to chuckle, but Vegeta shot him a murderous glance and reached out for the mug. Goten handed it over, nervously, and then backed away slowly, returning to doing all he could to help with the food.
"Everybody, go sit at the table, me and Gohan will bring out the food soon, it's nearly ready!" Chi-Chi exclaimed, in a delighted fashion. She was always incredibly festive around this time of year. She loved having the families together and working together in the kitchen.
Everyone headed to the dining area and sat down waiting for Gohan and Chi-Chi to start bringing everything out. Vegeta sat at the head of the table with Bulma and Bra either side of him. Soon enough everyone joined the table and the food was brought out. Everyone was happy as they started to dig into their food, with the Saiyans shredding through it, and the holiday had well and truly begun.
Breakfast finished and it was Bra that was first to call for presents to be opened. She grabbed her father's arm and started to drag him to the living room. Vegeta could easily resist but chose not to, even though he was feeling rather embarrassed. The family sat down in the living room and presents were opened. There was a lot of food being consumed by the Saiyans throughout the day, chocolate and sweets, mostly. Everyone exchanged their gifts, with Pan and Bra receiving brand new Capsule Corp. devices to make their lives easier, and everything was customisable. Capsule-phones, capsule-laptops, watches. Bra was showered with new clothes and other little things from her mother, and to a lesser extent, her father.
Lots of money meant lots of gifts, but it also meant that everyone pretty much had everything they wanted anyway. The rest of the morning was much more relaxed, Pan and Bra started setting up their new devices together, and everyone continued to watch bad TV together. Around midday Valese and Marron both arrived to see their boyfriends.
It was shaping up to be a calm and relaxed day.
Meanwhile, back in the mountains, Noca had started to make it quite far along the route. Apparently, his vision had been a little mixed up and the building he saw in his vision was likely further ahead. But things started to play out similarly to the vision with the strength of the winds picking up and making it difficult for Noca to see where he was going. He had to rely on wherever he was stepping, without actually seeing it. The further along the path he got Noca realised that the ground was becoming narrower, he could feel his feet slipping a little. It took the boy longer than it should have to realise he was very close to the edge of the mountain path, and it wouldn't be a comfortable landing if he were to fall.
Noca stopped, making sure he balanced himself and kept safe, but as he did that his feet slipped a little more and he noticed the ground had become icier. He had to throw his hands out to hold onto the side, but even that was icy, and hard to get a hold of. Noca wasn't sure that his instincts were helping him in this situation. He seemed to be heading further into danger, but nothing was stopping him from continuing. He had to keep moving.
Every now and then Noca's feet would slide just a little bit, and he could even feel the integrity of the ground weakening beneath his feet. Noca was beginning to fear for his life. He was still struggling to see through the wind and snow, but that was almost impossible at this point. He had to keep going now, there was no turning back. The path grew narrower and Noca was having to side-step along the path, with his back against the mountain wall. He took one more step forward and the ground cracked, loudly, and some of the path broke off and crumbled down.
The boy fell with it and started to slip down the wall, he kept his hands against the rocks and tried to grip onto something and hold himself up. As he continued to fall, he finally reached a ledge he could grab onto. It was extremely lucky that he managed that. He held on tightly and tried to pull himself back up. If only the wind and snow would let up and let him get along safely. Noca tried to remember that his instinct brought him to this point, and they should be able to get him through it safely. Noca calmed himself and closed his eyes. He did his best to keep his mind clear, but the weather did calm down and the ledge started to break away. Noca's eyes snapped open and he fell with the ledge, unable to grab onto any other rocks.
After nearly three hours of climbing up the mountain Noca would lose a lot of progress, but if he wasn't careful, he may lose his life.
Back over at the Capsule Corp. compound, the family and friends were gathered around in the living room, talking, playing games, watching TV. Normality. All of them were pretty much ignoring the TV when the news came on and nobody really paid attention to what was being said. But for some reason, somebody was drawn to it.
Pan felt something scratching in the back of her mind, something recognisable and she turned to look out of the window, noticing the snowfall. It seemed heavy, but nothing too bad. Then she turned to the TV where a weatherman appeared to be speaking.
"It seems that the blizzard occurring right now near Parsley City will most likely dissipate before it reaches us here in West City, so we'll be safe from the worst of it, but the snow we're experiencing will probably last us a couple of days," The weather said, while showing a map of the region where Parsley city was located. Pan's sense seemed to tell her that something was happening near Parsley city and it had something to do with the weather. The camera was now on the newsreader.
"We've been told that there have been a lot of rockslides caused by the cold weather, even some small avalanches have occurred in the area too, and there has been some damage to small rural villages," The newsreader confirmed. "King Furry says he is hoping to be able to dispatch aid to the area once the blizzard has passed."
Pan turned away from the TV and glanced back out of the window again. Bra noticed this and watched her friend, unsure of what was happening in her mind to distract her from setting her laptop up, as she had been doing for the past hour. The black-haired girl continued to feel like something bad was happening, but after feeling the turmoil it appeared to completely leave her and suddenly Pan felt empty. She shifted uncomfortably just a little bit and Bra certainly noticed. Pan almost felt like she lost something, and it affected her. She twitched and looked over to Bra, noticing her blue-haired best friend was watching her. Pan's eyes darted to everyone else, luckily none of them noticed anything, and then she looked at Bra again. She motioned her head to the door and the girls got up and grabbed their things together.
"We're gonna head upstairs so I can transfer some files to my new laptop," Bra said, as she and Pan headed out of the room and up the stairs, quickly. Nobody seemed to have any questions about it and just got on with what they were doing. Pan paced back and forth when she got into Bra's room, thinking on what may have happened to her energy friend.
"Pan, what is it?" Bra asked, clearly seeing the turmoil her friend had going on in her head. Pan stopped and looked at Bra. She opened her mouth to say something but seemed to tremble a little bit and nothing came out. Bra stepped over to her. "You're starting to worry me, what's wrong?"
Pan looked away again and cleared her throat.
"I felt that power again," Pan muttered, looking to the window. Bra seemed relieved that it wasn't anything bad and walked over to her friend, placing her arm around her friend.
"I get that it's weird, but you don't have to tell me every time," Bra said, almost in an amused way. Pan looked to Bra and pulled away.
"You don't get it… I don't know what happened, but there's definitely something to do with that blizzard in the mountains," Pan continued, clarifying her feelings. Bra watched on, beginning to understand that there was some distress going on in Pan's mind. "There was a point where it spiked a little and then… then it completely vanished."
"But doesn't it always vanish?" Bra asked. "You don't constantly feel it."
"This is different…" Pan muttered, staring at the floor. "It's gone."
"Gone? You mean…" Bra started.
"I think that whoever it belongs to is…" Pan continued but seemed to stop and gasp. Bra could see there was some form of emotion there. Pan was upset. She stepped over to her friend.
"Don't think like that," Bra said, trying to assure her friend. "You can't know that."
"What if they're dead?" Pan questioned as she backed up and dropped onto the bed, looking to the window again.
The winds in the mountains continued to blow ferociously, and it didn't seem like there was a chance of them letting up at any point that same day. The snow was getting heavier. There was no chance of any living thing getting through those mountains safely. Well, close to no chance. Every step Noca had taken in the snow had already been filled in. There was little possibility of Noca being able to find his way back to that cave. Rocks on the mountains had started to break away again.
Lower down the mountain, away from the most dangerous paths, lay a person. A young boy. Noca was in a very dangerous position. He was unconscious as the snow continued to fall and rocks broke away, and Noca would need to wake up soon. He was beginning to disappear beneath a white blanket of snow. The rocks and snow falling together started to form a strong avalanche that was headed straight towards the area where Noca lay.
Within the confines of his own mind was somewhere Noca was sure he didn't want to be in that moment. He was aware of the danger he was in by staying where he was. He knew his life was being put at extreme risk. But there was nothing he could do about that. As the avalanche rapidly approached the ground Noca's mind began to open up some more. He had found something inside that he understood and familiarised with. He saw it and reached out, touching it. Suddenly he felt a power flow through his body, a power he had felt before. There wasn't a lot, but he knew it was enough to make him feel much stronger.
He had found a way to use his potential and instinct to increase his power. If this was a feeling he could maintain and remember, then maybe it could lead to better control and his survival.
Noca's head was still just about visible through the snow and his eyes slowly opened. They began to adjust, and he could see a massive black cloud in the sky, throughout the falling snow, but it was getting much bigger and looked solid. Noca was becoming more aware to the present and could feel his face stinging. He tried to lift his hand to touch his face, but his arms felt like they had far too much weight on them. Noca blinked a couple of times and finally became away that it was a solid object falling towards him.
He attempted to lift himself off of the ground, but he still couldn't move. The object was going to hit him. Noca shut his eyes, ready to embrace the impact.
But then something happened. He was well aware of its presence and now he had one hand on how to use it. He felt his power rise and felt the Ki emanating from within. There was a small explosion of power and Noca shot up with a golden aura and flew right through the falling snow and rocks. He managed to get himself to safety and landed some distance away. He was finally out of danger.
He attempted to stand but a pain shot through his left leg and it caused him a lot of discomfort. He looked down and saw there was a lot of blood. There was a brief shock as he looked over his body and saw his hands appeared to be scratched up and bloody as well. He then finally realised he could move his arms properly and went to feel his face and as soon as he touched it there was some stinging pain and more blood. That fall had caused an awful lot of damage. Noca was in a lot of pain, but he had to try and ignore it all.
Noca tried to stand one more time and decided to put more pressure on his right leg as he did so. But he just fell to the ground again. He had fallen down on to his stomach and slowly lifted his head, to see through the snow, but it was far too difficult. This was not shaping up to be a fun Christmas for Noca, at all. Looking past the pain he was in and the impossible situation, Noca realised that he was missing his bag. Something he seemed to constantly misplace.
He didn't have a clue about where he could fine it, but he had to look. There was no way he would leave it behind. He needed to try and completely forget about the pain in his leg. He managed to get up once more and kept most of the pressure on his right leg and seemed to be ok. There was still an occurring problem though. The snow wasn't slowing any time soon, but the wind was beginning to let up a little, so Noca's vision had become clearer. He started to take a few steps forward, but it only seemed to cause more pain. He wasn't going to stop though. He knew that if he were to prove he could be a strong and effective fighter then he would need to keep going and push through the pain.
Although he stumbled along and fell over a few times, he thought he was fine. That's what he had to keep telling himself anyway. He wouldn't let anything stop him and would have to keep fighting on and ensure that he survived it, retrieved his bag, and make his way to West City. He was determined to keep on that same path.
The injured Saiyan limped on through the snow, in pain, and practically blind. Noca had no idea how he would find the bag, he just had to hope he would stumble upon it, but he wasn't sure how likely that was. He continued on through the snow as it began to slow down and his vision was much clearer, but then there was a crack sound, and something drew Noca's attention up. He looked up right away and saw a rock falling down and it struck him right in the head, knocking him unconscious, again.
Back at the Capsule Corp. compound, the entire group of family and friends were all sitting down to eat their dinner and it was clearly a meal that had once again been planned by Chi-Chi. Everyone was sitting and eating, the Saiyans non-stop eating, aside from Pan and Bra who were stuck in their heads for a bit. Once they had finished their dinner the girls were back out of the room again and returned to Bra's bedroom.
"Pan, stop worrying," Bra said, seeing that Pan was still in some form of distress.
"How? How do you expect me to stop worrying? I know this power, it's been a part of me for the last few months, so when it finally disappears completely what am I supposed to do? Huh? Tell me?" Pan explained, bursting out in a rant. Bra was taken aback and tried to keep herself composed.
"I'm sorry… I…" Bra said, stuttering a little and unable to get her words out. "Do you know where it is?"
"I don't know, I can usually feel it coming from a direction but this time I only felt the power before it went, I just don't know what the hell I should do?" Pan said, questioning it in a semi-panicked state. "It probably has something to do with the blizzard but… I don't know."
Pan dropped to the floor next to Bra's bed, with her back against it. She put her head in her hands and tried to shake the thoughts away. Bra sat down beside her and put her arm around her.
"Come on, Pan. Let's try to get on with the rest of Christmas, ok?" Bra asked, hoping her friend would be able to just push it away for a bit and relax. Pan looked up.
"Fine," Pan agreed as they both stood up and went back downstairs together to enjoy the rest of the evening with their families.
Tuesday 26th December Age 791
The next morning was a lot calmer than Christmas Day had been. This was great for the people living in the towns and cities affected by the blizzards over the holiday. The weather had all cleared up, almost miraculously, and King Furry had already dispatched his army to deliver relief efforts to the affected areas. Still up in the mountains, Noca lay unconscious. He was just starting to wake up but didn't seem to be very aware of where he was, at least not right away. He opened his eyes and looked up to sky, soon noticing that the sun was blazing. He looked away and slowly lifted himself up but felt a sharp pain in his left leg again. Noca had to stifle a cry and dropped to the ground.
He tried to roll onto his front and push himself up, but he just couldn't do it. He could still feel the stinging and aching pains all over his body, just like the night prior. He touched his face again and could feel the cuts and the dried blood. He knew he had been heavily injured, but he didn't know it would be this badly.
The white t-shirt he had on underneath his jacket had been covered in blood, again it had dried. Noca was in incredible pain. He really wished he didn't have to continue going, but he couldn't lie in the snow all day. He put all his strength into trying to lift himself up to his feet and carry on walking. As he moved on, he noticed his bag close by on the ground, but he was almost certain he didn't find it the night before. He looked around and picked it up. Everything was still there. Noca looked back but didn't want to dawdle anymore, his mind drifted back to the thoughts of that strange house in his visions and he continued walking.
Meanwhile, high up in the sky, a green man hovered in the sky. He seemed to be watching over Noca. It was Piccolo, and he was honestly impressed by how Noca had almost managed to push through all that trouble the night before.
"So, you are pretty tough," Piccolo mentioned to himself.
"I told you," A voice said from beside Piccolo, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. Piccolo flinched in surprise and moved away a little, turning to see Goku had appeared beside him.
"Don't do that, Goku!" Piccolo exclaimed. The Saiyan chuckled to himself and looked down. "He's in really bad shape."
"He'll be fine, he's a Saiyan," Goku assured his Namekian friend, "This will all only serve to make him much stronger."
"Hm, I'll keep watch when I can, but when do you think you'll finally introduce yourself?" Piccolo asked, turning to face Goku. The Saiyan chuckled again and raised his fingers to his head, using instant transmission to leave. Piccolo huffed and looked down again.
Noca was back on both feet and limped towards the mountain path. He needed to continue on the same route he had followed the night before. The blizzard had created a huge setback for the young Saiyan, and he would definitely need to hurry along the rest of his journey, which would be incredibly difficult while he could hardly walk. Noca found that the further he went the more he started to ignore the pain, but that didn't affect the limp.
He was feeling pretty dizzy as well, but that must have been due to the fact that he had suffered too many blows to the head that night, as well as a lack of food and water. Noca needed to find something soon but it didn't seem incredibly likely at that moment. He would have to just push through and rest whenever he could.
The further along the route he went Noca noticed he was losing a lot of his day. He was moving far too slowly. One check on his watch and he noticed it was already getting to the evening, he definitely needed to take a break and sleep properly at some point. He found a cave to sleep in, but this one was further along the route than he had made it before. He managed to limp inside the cave and set up a small camp. He still only had a little bit of food in his bag and had to ration it as best as he could.
While he sat there, he took off his coat and took a proper look at his wounds. He took a clean shirt out of his bag and removed the one he was wearing. He needed to clean the wounds and moved out of the cave a little and took some of the left-over snow and bottled it, using that to clean himself off. The wounds all stung but it was also a little relieving as he used the cold snow to clean himself.
Once he had done this, he felt like it was best to get some more sleep. He could still barely move his leg so there would be no fight training for a while. He would have to continue his meditative training whenever he could. But that could wait until tomorrow. Noca wanted rest. He lay down close to his Capsule-heater and fell asleep.
Characters Seen/Mentioned in this Chapter:
Noca (OC)
Son Gohan
Videl
Pan
Chi-Chi
Son Goten
Bulma
Vegeta
Bra
Trunks
Marron
Valese
Piccolo
Son Goku
