Same old story. Been as busy as ever. One thing after another. What's with all these sentence fragments? Oh well. On with the next chapter. Hey look another fragment!
Chapter 19: Search, but No Rescue
Vegeta looks out the window and watches the Bulma imposter disappear from sight. He ignores Bulma's pleading and begging. As soon as the fake Bulma is gone, he bursts into laughter. Bulma stops apologizing and stares at the hysteric Saiyan.
"Uh, Vegeta?"
He continues laughing. Bulma tilts her head in confusion.
"It will be only a matter of time until the evil side of Cathy rises again. Ha, ha, ha…"
"Vegeta, what are you talking about?"
"That's for me to know and for you to find out, on your own." He grabs her and locks her up in his bedroom. "You're staying there until my plan is carried out."
"No. You can't do this to me. Vegeta let me out! I don't understand." She looks for the phone. "There it is! Oh, what was their number?"
She frantically paces until she remembers it and races back to the phone. When she picks up the receiver, however, there's no sound. She looks at the cord. It's broken. If it's a clean cut, she could hold the pieces together and dial, but it's charred on both ends. "Oh. It's no use. I'll be here for a while, I guess. He knows better than to hurt me."
At Goku's house, there's a soft knock at the door. Jessie does her best to open it.
"How did it go?" she asks eagerly.
"I'll tell you in the morning. I'm too tired to talk right now."
"Okay," Jessie really wants to hear the story, but Cathy doesn't want her to hear bad news. She decides to continue to look like Bulma until the wound heals more, so she goes to bed and falls into a deep sleep.
Jessie awakens Goku and tells him that Cathy's back. He just nods his head and dozes off once more. She returns to the guest room and joins everyone in dreamland.
Vegeta is more than awake now. He has the Canary Cam out again and is using it to see if everyone at the residence of Goku is asleep. He places the Cam on auto pilot and goes into his bedroom. Bulma has also fallen asleep. He enters his closet and pulls out a tranquilizer with a box of darts. He chuckles evilly and heads over to his rival's house, making sure that his energy is well hidden.
"This is too easy," he thinks to himself as he enters the house through the front door without a sound. He quietly ascends the stairs. The doors are labeled, making his plan that much easier. He opens the guest room door without a sound. With the gun already loaded, he shoots Jessie in the shoulder. She wakes up from the pain only to go into a different kind of sleep.
"THE SUN IS COMING UP!" the rooster from Chapter 14 calls.
"Uhh," Cathy, still as Bulma, yawns. "Good morning, Jessie," she greets.
There's no reply.
She turns over to see…an empty bed.
"She must be up already," she thinks. She returns to her normal form, slightly hurting her shoulder.
"Hey, Jessie?" she calls telepathically.
There's still no reply.
She tries about five more times and gets nothing.
"Jessie, this isn't funny. Where are you?" she calls aloud.
"JESSIE!" she yells after searching the entire house.
Gohan catches the hint and helps with the search.
"What's going on?" Goku asks tiredly.
"Jessie's missing," his son answers.
"Cathy doesn't seem very happy about it."
"Yeah. She's freaking out badly. I think you should talk to her. I'll keep looking."
Chi Chi also helps in the search. "She couldn't have gone far. Not with a broken tail," she states.
"She must've been kidnapped," Gohan concludes.
"But how? All the windows and doors were locked…Weren't they?"
Cathy realizes the truth. "I forgot to lock the front door when I came back! This is all my fault!" she screams.
"Hey calm down. Think about it. Who knows about you two besides our friends? Who wants to kidnap a lion? Wherever she is, we'll find her. I promise."
Cathy makes no response. She just exits the house and sits under a tree.
"Poor thing," Chi Chi expresses.
"Dad, go talk to her," Gohan pleads.
"I think she's better off left alone," Goku states.
Chi Chi gets an idea, "Maybe the news will have something about a loose mountain lion." She turns on the T.V. and listens to it as she does her chores.
"Your little friend's probably blaming herself for your kidnapping. "Vegeta tells the still sleeping Jessie. "Your dose should be wearing off soon. I better give you another." He tranquillizes her manually. "I'll be back with a little snack," he says.
He goes to the Tower of Korin and demands a sinchu bean.
"Fine, but only one," Korin gives in.
"One is all I need," the Saiyan brags. He goes back to Capsule Corp. and forces Jessie to eat the bean.
Within three seconds, her tail is healed. Vegeta removes the cast and tests the bone. "Perfect," he approves. "Now for some sugar."
He runs to the kitchen and grabs a 5 pound bag of sugar. "Hmmm…" he pauses. "Perhaps I should wait until the other girl has neared her transformation."
He goes into the basement and regains control of the Canary Cam. "There she is. Look at her, pouting, contemplating, and blaming herself. Yes. Soon she shall unleash destruction. Wait…what's this? Kakarot's gonna try to help her? Ha, ha, ha, yeah right."
"Hey," Goku tries to catch Cathy's attention. He sits in front of her. "You feeling alright?"
Cathy avoids eye contact and just nods her head.
"Are you sure?"
Cathy is really on edge, worse than before. "Everything's fine, I feel OK. Honest."
(Warning: the following is really deep. Those of you who might cry should grab a tissue box and a teddy bear.)
But deep in her heart, not everything was fine, she didn't feel OK, she wasn't honest about her feelings. She misses Jessie. She's the only person in the universe she can openly talk to. With her gone, she can only keep her feelings bottled up inside.
Goku doesn't believe what she is saying. He remembers how Jessie tells Cathy to express her true feelings.
"Cathy you can't keep you feelings bottled up inside. It's not good for you."
Cathy's eyes widen. "How do you know!" she questions in disbelief.
Only Jessie knows this, but there is Vegeta. It's probable that he didn't tell Goku because he thinks he's too stupid to understand.
"All I know is when I let out my feelings, my power level advances. That's how I became a Super Saiyan. I'm sure it's the same for you."
Cathy looks at him in shock. He may not have knowledge, but he has wisdom. She decides to reveal her true feelings.
Goku listens intently, but he isn't the only one.
Vegeta's busy taking notes. "You can lose trust a lot quicker than you can gain, Kakarot. Once you lose her trust and with Jessie out of the way, it's only a matter of time before the girl explodes with anger. Ha, ha, ha…"
Cathy pours out her feelings like sour milk. As she talks she begins to feel much better.
"Promise you won't tell anyone?"
"Promise."
"When we find Jessie, you can tell her that I let you in the circle of trust."
Goku shows a smile that meant, 'everything will be O.K.'
"Now, let's start looking," Cathy says as she jumps up.
"Don't you want some breakfast first?" Goku asks.
"If Jessie was kidnapped, she probably hasn't eaten yet. So I'm not eating either. Besides, I'm not hungry."
"Well, okay. Let's see if we can convince Chi Chi to let Gohan help.
"Kakarot seems to have thrown a wrench in my plan, however," he holds up the bag of sugar and the notes he took, "I have a way of pulling it out."
"Of course he can help, it's Saturday," Chi Chi answers after Goku begged her while on his knees. Cathy falls over anime style.
"Dad that was embarrassing." Gohan whines.
"Heh, heh, sorry, son." Goku gets up and leads his son and friend outside.
"I'll keep watch on the T.V.," Chi Chi calls behind the flying trio.
The Canary Cam follows suit at a safe distance.
"We should split up," Cathy suggests.
"Okay. I'll check the cities," Goku volunteers.
"I'll check the forests," Gohan adds.
"I'll talk to the animals," Cathy finishes.
The three separate and the bird traces Goku's path.
Cathy turns to the mountains first. She asks the mountain lions if they've seen Jessie. Negative answers are received unanimously. She goes to the ocean and asks the fish if they've see a loose mountain lion. They gave a confused look and the answer of 'no'.
Meanwhile, Gohan calls throughout the forest for Cathy's friend and gets no answer.
His father has the most trouble.
"Hi," he greets a passer-by, "have you seen a mountain lion anywhere?"
The man's reaction is wide eyes and shouting. "MOUNTAIN LION ON THE LOOSE! LOOK OUT EVERYONE! RUN AWAY! LOOSE MOUNTAIN LION!" The man runs in a violently waving path toward his house and continues to shout.
Two seconds later, chaos spreads throughout the city. Goku sighs, shakes his head, and continues his search silently.
"Hey! A not-so- familiar voice calls. Goku stops to see who's calling him.
"Uh, down here, sir," the short man directs. Goku looks down to a see a man with a microphone labeled Channel Five News. Another man with a camera approaches the two.
"Hi, I'm with the news and I was wondering what you said to that man to cause this chaos."
Goku huffs loudly. "All I did was ask him if he saw a mountain lion anywhere."
The newsman has trouble hiding his fear. "S-so y-you l-lost your p-pet l-l-lion?" he shakes out.
"She's not really my pet. She's more like a friend."
"I s-see. Well th-there you h-have it f-folks. Th-there's a-a l-l-l-lion on th-the l-loose. T-try to st-stay indoors and I-I'll k-k-k-keep you p-p-posted."
The news and camera men flee the scene, leaving Goku alone once again.
"Maybe Vegeta knows," he thinks hopefully.
Chi Chi gets false excitement when she notices chaos on the T.V. screen, but that quickly changes to frustration when she realizes her husband caused it.
Cathy joins Gohan after both have unsuccessful searches. They return home sad and exhausted.
"Is your shoulder feeling any better, Cathy," Gohan inquires.
"Yeah…It's just a scab now but I'm sure it'll reopen if I shape-shift so I'm trying to be careful."
KNOCK, KNOCK, CLUNK, "OW! Kakarot, pay attention to what you're doing!" Vegeta rubs his head after finding out what it's like being a door. "What are you up to?"
"I know you probably won't help, but Jessie's missing. She was in the form of a mountain lion the last time I saw her. Have you seen her anywhere?"
"I don't appreciate your assumption of my possible reaction, but no I haven't seen her since she was a fly at the West City Library."
Sweat drops form on Goku's head. "Heh, heh. Well thanks for your help. I gotta go…"
"Oh no you don't. Not until you hear what I have to say."
The taller Saiyan gulps.
"Your frequent lying is going to get you into trouble on day, Kakarot. You'll see. You're dismissed."
"Bye!" he flies back home.
"That was too easy," the prince says as he prepares to feed Jessie a whole 5 pound bag of sugar and make use of the notes he took.
Phew. Finally. There's one more chapter left for this story. I don't know if I'll get the last chapter to you in two days, but it's worth a try. I have limited time and I'm trying as hard has I can. Please continue (or start) to read and review my other story if your waiting for me. Over the summer, computer access will be limited. So I won't be able to provide chapters as often. I apologize in advance to those with very little patience. Until the next chapter, Roosha.