Pursual Arc
Chapter 7: Mortals Gather Before the Gods
A/N: Hey everyone! Just so you know this chapter is a bit on the short side; mostly because this is sort of a 'setting the table' chapter, but also because I mashed my left pointer finger in a door. Makes typing hurt a bit. Other than that, enjoy!
The helicopter flew through the air for about half an hour, keeping a high altitude to the ground. Rayne and Chi-Chi couldn't think of anything to talk about with their newfound companions, so they resigned themselves to watching the ground go by below. Krillin, Yamcha, and Oolong seemed to be content with the silence, letting the minutes pass in quiet. The helicopter began descending soon enough, landing in the middle of a camp set up next to a forest. Or, more accurately, a camp with a fully constructed house. The landing rails of the helicopter touched to the ground. Krillin, Yamcha, and Oolong rose
"Alright, alright," Oolong laughed as he exited the helicopter, "you have to admit, that was a pretty darn good mission.
"Oh," Bulma responded while pulling off Red Ribbon Army logos from the helicopter exterior, "it was. Close, but that's what made it good.
"Yea," Puar said as she came around from the other cockpit door, "you really came in clutch at the end, Oolong. We couldn't have done it without you."
"It was nothing."
Rayne and Chi-Chi felt hopelessly lost. "Would it be possible," Chi-Chi asked of the group at large, "if we could have an explanation of what just happened?..."
"Oh, so sorry! We haven't introduced ourselves. My name is Bulma," the woman who had piloted the helicopter said while waving a hand in greeting. "That pig over there is Oolong, and the three others are -"
"No need. They told us before."
"Alright. Honestly, I wasn't actually there for most of the mission, so Puar?..."
The cat nodded. "Well, the short version is that Oolong and I are shapeshifters and we impersonated a bunch of people. Want the long version?"
Chi-Chi and Rayne very quickly said yes.
"Well, Oolong and I went to a shapeshifting school where we learned how to turn into any shape we wish, including people. We teamed up with Krillin and Yamcha, two aspiring martial artists, and Bulma, a techy adventurer, to recover a set of magical wish-granting balls to revive a deceased martial artist."
"That's not very long, but okay..." Rayne mumbled under her breath before speaking louder. "Why were you at the Red Ribbon base?"
"Simple. We found out there was a dragonball being stored there by the Red Ribbon Army, and we need all the dragonballs to use them to grant a wish. Right now we have five, so we have two left to find before we have all seven. So, we snuck into the base." She gestured to herself. "I played the important role of captor, leading my 'prisoners' to the 'outside cells'. Or, that was the plan before it got messed up by the arrival of a certain Red Ribbon officer."
Well, Rayne thought, I figured that out, at least.
"I, on the other hand," Oolong continued, "played the illustrious Colonel Silver, rescuing everyone with one timely order."
"Wait," Rayne said, "I'm confused. Were you Colonel Silver the entire time, or?..."
Oolong shook his head "Nope. Didn't even know he existed before I saw him while disguised in the mess hall crowd. Once I did, it was just a matter of finding a hidden spot to change and catching up with you guys. Lucky for us that the man seemed decidedly disinterested in making sure his original order was carried out. He just… disappeared. Odd."
For sure. "Well, we're definitely grateful you all bailed us out."
"Us too, Oolong." Puar floated over, smiling. "If we hadn't trusted you to help us out then we'd all be wasting away in prison cells right now. We owe you one."
"It was nothing," Oolong said with a smidget of boasting, "just doing my part. For sure, the best part was when we first got in we and convinced the entire base they were being attacked by angry villagers… I even saw one guy firing into the forest, terrified of 'movement in the trees'!" He led the group in a genuine fit of laughter.
"There's something I'm still not clear on, though." Chi-Chi tapped a finger to her chin as the rest slowly let their laughter die off. "Presumably infiltrating an army base is a very dangerous thing, even with shapeshifters helping you. Were the other dragon balls so hard to find or as dangerous?..."
Out of the corner of her eye, Rayne saw most of their company frown.
Not Oolong though. "While I haven't met the guy personally, apparently there's this kid named Kakarot who has one of these dragonballs. And he is one mean dude."
Rayne unconsciously narrowed her eyes. "So," she said, seemingly forcing herself to talk, "You know of him."
Still frowning, Krillin nodded. "At the very beginning of all this, he was the first person we met while we were hunting for the dragon balls. We watched Kakarot kill a martial arts master, then spare us. It was… disturbing.
Puar floated over and whispered in Oolong's ear. They waved and walked away from an increasingly somber scene.
"So," Rayne said, eyes on Krillin, "he spared you, too."
Krillin simply stared back his response.
"He has a dragonball?" Chi-Chi asked. "Wait, what does a dragon ball look like?" Suddenly Chi-Chi threw off her pack and started furiously rummaging through it. After a few seconds, she emerged with an orange ball in her right hand, six stars on it.
She had successfully shocked her company. "What! Where did you get that?" Bulma yelped.
"Well, this was given to me by my father when I set out from our castle. He said it was a very powerful artifact that would reveal its power to me when the time was right."
"Who's your father?"
"The Ox-King of Fire Mountain. You've heard of him?"
Bulma shook her head. "No, but it seems like he knew more about the dragonballs than the average person… hmm…"
"Wait, Bulma," Krillin asked while withdrawing the seven-star dragon ball he had stolen from the red ribbon army base from his pack, "how many dragonballs do we have now? Our pace of acquisition has gotten pretty frantic as of late."
"One second." Bulma pulled out a capsule and clicked it, and threw it at the ground; it exploded in a cloud of smoke. When it cleared, there were four dragonballs on the ground.
"Hand the dragonball to me for a second…' Bulma commanded Krillin. "Chi-Chi's your name, right?"
Chi-Chi grinned. "Yes, it is. Here you go." She handed the six-star dragon ball to Krillin. He brought that and the seven-star ball to the pile, arranging the six dragon balls in a line according to their numbers. When he finished that, there was a straight line of six dragonballs, a gap in the middle from the absence of - if the pattern held - the four-star dragonball.
"Bulma, could you use the dragon radar, please?" He asked as he knelt before the line.
She quickly pulled out it out and turned it on, eyes glued to the screen as it scanned. "Well, the good news is there's one dragonball left to get. Bad news, Kakarot has it." Six dots on the radar were right on top of each other. Much farther away was one.
"Great," Krillin whispered, his gaze distant as he stared at the six balls gathered in front of him, "just great."
0o0o0
Everyone was a bit too tired, too drained, to continue down the path of thought of facing Kakarot again. They settled into the motions of setting up camp, with Rayne and Chi-Chi volunteering to help out wherever they could. A nice meal, the group decided, would be relaxing for everyone. At least, that was the hope.
As the scraps were being polished off, Chi-Chi watched the rest of the camp settle into their activities for the rest of the night. Bulma languidly entered her capsule house, lights inside flickering on and off occasionally. Oolong and Puar chatted while taking a walk away from camp, apparently reminiscing on some shared memory. Krillin and Yamcha exchanged a look and walked over to the far end of camp, stretching as they went. Which left Rayne and Chi-Chi by the fire. It was then, Chi-Chi realized, that they hadn't had a chance to talk since the whole fiasco at the Red Ribbon army base. Rayne herself looked decidedly disinterested, absent-mindedly poking the fire, embers flying into the wind every so often. Chi-Chi felt the need to press on.
"Rayne," Chi-Chi ventured, feeling a bit uncertain of what to say, "I understand what you're feeling. I for one wouldn't want to come face to face again with someone who almost murdered me. I-"
"It's not that."
"Huh?" Chi-Chi asked, surprised. "Then what's going on with you?"
"It's… mmm. I feel useless, if that makes sense. Powerless."
"What do you mean? Towards Kakarot?"
"That's a part of it, but there's more. While everyone here seems like great people, I don't know how I could help with their quest. The only reason you and me survived that base was because there was two martial artists, two shapeshifters, and a genius - (I'm guessing that's what Bulma is? A scientist? Fits with the magically appearing and disappearing items she has) - were there to bail us out." Rayne sighed. "I don't see how we could ever help in taking a dragonball from Kakarot. If the past is anything to go on…"
Chi-Chi laughed. And it wasn't a puny, tiny giggle, or some half-hearted chortled; it was a full belly, loud and proud laugh. After a few seconds where Rayne was shocked- rude! or at least blunt - She frowned at Chi-Chi. Wiping some proto-tears from her eyes, Chi-Chi cast an amused glance at Rayne. "I can't believe this is the same person I met in that forest so short a time ago.
What's that supposed to mean? Hmmph. Rayne internally grumbled.
"You know what? I think I know what can give you some perspective. You lack motivation. Go ask Krillin and Yamcha what motivates them."
"What?"
"That's all I'm gonna say." With that, Chi-Chi rose and walked away, if for no other reason than to leave Rayne alone with her thoughts. I!... Her!...hooooo… breathe in, breathe out. Frustrating as she is, she might be onto something. Rising, Rayne looked over to where Krillin and Yamcha had walked off to, and sure enough, she found the two calmly sitting on the ground. Time to pay a quick visit.
Trying to be as unobtrusive as she could, Rayne strode over to the two, making sure to not make much noise. It wasn't successful. About ten feet away Krillin opened his eyes and saw Rayne approaching. He nudged Yamcha and he came out of whatever he was doing, and watched Rayne as she closed.
With both of their expressions saying 'What's up?', Rayne asked, "What motivates you?"
They looked at each other, to confirm they were thinking the same thing. "What motivates us," Yamcha began hesitantly, "is the goal, I guess. The quest, more accurately. To get the seven dragonballs to revive someone-"
"I understand that," Rayne cut him off, hoping she wasn't being rude, "but why him? This… whoever he is."
"This person," Krillin explained, "was called Master Roshi. Have you heard of him?"
Rayne shook her head no.
"He was a famous martial artist and an even more famous teacher. He was, well, an amazing individual. Yamcha and I have heard thousands of tales about the good work he's done."
"Okay, but what does that have to do with us?"
Krillin momentarily looked aggravated, but if he had any frustration he didn't show it. "Master Roshi is a positive force for the world. For the wellbeing of its people and their wellbeing. When he's not out there defeating evil he's inspiring others to do the same. He has and was going to keep on doing this for a long time… until he was killed by Kakarot."
To be honest, Rayne wasn't shocked that Kakarot had killed someone they knew/idolized. Definitely keeping with his personality. But Rayne felt the pain written on their faces while they brought up the subject. Krillin, in particular, looked hurt by the discussion. "So that's the goal then? Revive this old master so he can resume his good life before he was cut down?"
"Rayne, to tell the truth, there's no reason for why me, or Yamcha, Puar, Oolong, Bulma - no reason why we specifically are doing this. But there's a part of me that before this was crying out to help the world in some way, change it in a good way. When I saw Master Roshi die in front of me… it clicked. I needed to help." Throughout this monologue, Krillin was getting more and more worked up. "I can't really say what motivates me… but I can say that I am, this resonates with me, and I need to see it to the end."
So the truth comes out. Motivation is more than just motivation; it's the tool itself. Someone could crush planets in their hand, but without a reason to act, they're useless. Don't sweat the details; focus on the goal. "You know, that actually makes a lot of sense Krillin." Still feeling a bit unsure socially, Rayne risked a genuine smile. "Thank you."
Visibly relaxing, Krillin nodded. "No problem, those are just my thoughts..."
"So uh… do you two usually meditate?"
"Not all the time." Krillin responded, "We usually try to spend half of our free time meditating and half of our free time training."
"Interesting. Do you mind if?..." she motioned to sit.
"Go ahead. Be warned though, we're not going to be talking much during this." Rayne saw a glint of humor in Krillin's eyes.
Assuming a cross-legged position, Rayne let her mind wander for a time, going back to her past, going back to her time in the Red Ribbon Army, passing over all the events that had brought her here to this place, this time. I'm lucky, she realized, to be where I am.
0o0o0
Fists flew. Blows rocketed back and forth, as neither Krillin nor Yamcha allowed themselves to be pushed out of a circle they'd drawn into the dirt. Their arms were locked, muscles bulging against each other as their feet dug into the ground. Legs skittered around, trying to avoid going out but also trying to reposition to knock each other off balance and out of the ring.
Off to the side, Rayne watched intently, trying to track every single movement the two made. While Rayne trained extensively in hand-to-hand combat while with the Red Ribbon army, what she was watching now confirmed her suspicions; these two were on an entirely different level from her. At least for now. Rayne was confident that as long as she kept her eyes open and her mind pliable, she'd be able to pick up anything she saw.
Another kick from Krillin. Yamcha seemed to be caught off guard for the first time in the session, but after a few seconds revealed this to be a feint and threw up a punch at Krillin, him barely blocking it with his arms and his forward momentum. He dangerously teetered near the edge for a second before reigning in his body and twisting right, reassuming a strong position in the circle. Neither was determined to give up any ground.
I'm tempted to jump in there first chance I get, though I'm still miles behind them in strength, and slightly behind in skill. A block collided with a strike. So far, I haven't seen anything crazy.
No sooner than she thought that, she was blinded by a sudden flash. When she could clearly see she saw Krillin knocked out of the circle on his back, Yamcha standing victorious in the circle, panting. What? What just happened?
"Now, I'll admit," Krillin conceded as he propped himself up with his hands, that was well-timed."
Yamcha relaxed his arms from a guard. "I may still be a one-trick pony, but at least I'm a strong one-trick pony." He walked out of the circle to where Krillin laid sprawled out on the ground, helping him to his feet.
Noting Rayne's bewildered expression, Krillin addressed his next few words at Rayne. "What you just saw was ki. Basically, it's a life-
"I'll stop you short there. I know ki. What I don't know is how you sent an evenly-matched opponent flying."
"Simple." Yamcha said while dusting off his clothes, "You just concentrate it into one spot of the body and then release it all at once. Helps when the opponent doesn't really know how to block it. Unfortunately, I can't really use ki in any other way except how I did just now, but at least I'm at the point where I'm strong enough to use it without blacking out.
"You were blacking out from your own attacks?" Rayne asked, dumbfounded.
Yamcha could only scratch his head and nervously laugh. His eyes shifted to the two people approaching the sparring ring.
Puar and Chi-Chi had come over to watch the tail-end of the session. Oolong and Bulma were nowhere to be seen.
"Everyone," Puar spoke once she was close," I think there's something we should talk about. At Puar's side, Chi-Chi looked a bit impatient, though seemingly more from positive than negative anticipation. "Chi-Chi here was telling me something very interesting about a certain person we all know."
"Who? Bulma?" Yamcha asked in a dumb guess.
"No! Listen for a second." She turned to Chi-Chi. "Go ahead."
"Right. So here's something I learned while I was tracking Kakarot for a few days. He has a pattern to his... routine." Chi-Chi said shuddering while referring to Kakarot's repeated killing of innocents as commonplace. "After he destroyed a settlement, every time after it seemed he was… weakened, in some way. While I never saw the attacks for myself, in what I saw afterwards there was a serious drop in his power. If you all are planning on attacking him, that's when I would…"
"You do realize," Krillin said very plainly of fact, "that that plan of action requires us waiting for Kakarot to kill an entire village."
No one stepped forward to acknowledge Krillin's statement.
"Krillin," Yamcha pleaded, "you should of all people should know how strong Kakarot is. We have to take every chance we get…"
"I refuse." Krillin quickly said in a tone bereft of consideration. "What you're all suggesting is manslaughter at best and murder at worse. We fight Kakarot as soon as we're ready. Which is looking like any day now."
"Hold on a second Krillin. Think about how the dragon ball legend works." Puar reasoned. "There's no asterisk or condition about the wish granted; it's just 'your wish is granted.' There's a good chance we could revive everyone who was killed by Kakarot and not just Master Roshi, if we choose our words right."
Krillin arched an eyebrow in skepticism. "So what, we say 'revive everyone who has been killed Kakarot'? And you think that'll work?"
"There's no reason it wouldn't. One thing taught to all shapeshifters very early on is that all details matter, so if there's no warning associated with the dragon ball legend, well… what's the difference between one or one hundred lives to some sort of wish-granting thing?"
"I suppose you have a point… but you do understand what all of you would be committing if that wish can't be granted."
"I think," Yamcha spoke somberly, seeing the agreement in everyone else, "that we need to take every opportunity to give ourselves a fighting chance at defeating Kakarot. We accept the risks."
Minefield successfully navigated, Chi-Chi resumed her original line of thought. "So… if you're going to track Kakarot, you're going to need someone to help you with that. Which is where I come in. Like I said my father is the Ox-King - he tasked me to hunt and stop Kakarot. So, as it turns out I have a reason to stop Kakarot, as does Rayne who was almost killed by him." Chi-Chi looked over to Rayne, and saw her shaking her head in agreement. "We offer to help in whatever way possible to take down Kakarot. Use the radar to get close to Kakarot, and let me take it from there."
"I think I speak for everyone," Krillin said while smiling at his companions, "when I say that we would be honored by both of your help."
0o0o0
When Bulma and Oolong had heard the news their reaction was to shrug with indifference- it seemed that the group was adding someone new by the day. They all spent some time talking and celebrating the acceptance of their newest members before everyone settled down for the night. Bulma had said tomorrow she would be, one, searching her capsules for a bigger car to fit everyone and, two, driving towards the last blip on the radar. Driving to Kakarot.
Thus, while the entire camp was asleep, Chi-Chi and Rayne were left alone in their bedrolls, uneasiness stemming from the daunting nature of their task. They were idling chatting until both of them felt sleepy enough when a question popped into Chi-Chi's head.
"Rayne? Mind if I ask you a sorta personal question?"
The look she received spoke very clearly: choose your next words carefully. "Yea?"
"Well, I remember when we first met, you were pretty… unwilling to talk about your past. We're both tired but… is there anything you want to tell me?"
Chi-Chi couldn't see any reaction on Rayne's face in the darkness. Granted, she also couldn't see Rayne's face. "Goodnight, Chi-Chi," Rayne said after a moment, before she turned in her bedroll to face away from her.
Chi-Chi sighed. Rayne, I tried, but you insist on torturing yourself...
0o0o0
Camp broke an hour after dawn. The tone surrounding everyone was noticeably more serious, the enthusiasm and joy of the last night being tempered by a night's sleep. Rayne and Chi-Chi were both surprised when Bulma found and deployed a minivan/jeep hybrid from a tiny capsule, but by now the both of them had come to expect the unexpected with these people. As they were climbing into the car, and Bulma was making the very last adjustments to the day's planned route on her map, she rapped on the metal of the car and got everyone's attention.
"Something occurred to me that I want to confirm. When we defeat Kakarot, we're going to kill him, right?"
No one was quick to respond. These people must have been thinking about this, right? Bulma thought aggravated.
"I'm not sure I feel comfortable with that," Yamcha replied.
"I'll be honest; me neither." Krillin chimed in.
It was Rayne's turn to be frustrated. "Are you serious? You don't want to kill Kakarot? Do you not understand how many people he's killed? How many lives he's destroyed? If we left him alive we'd be condemning more innocent people to die. I can understand taking risks to kill Kakarot, but once he's been dealt with, not killing him would be inexcusable!" She finished on the verge of screaming, face red with exertion.
She took a second to breathe. "I'm not going to let anyone else bargain with human lives. If none of you will kill Kakarot, I will."
No one wanted to acknowledge what Rayne had said. But by leaving that last comment unanswered they gave their tacit approval to the plan.
It was an uneasy tone to leave a car in, now accelerating and speeding along, on the eve of battle.
0o0o0
Ashes drifted in the wind. Corpses pooled in their own blood. It was a magnificent sight to Kakarot.
From where he was on the hill, he could fully admire his handiwork. As of late, he'd come to love killing again, surprising as it was to him. Here he was, thinking killing had finally lost its luster, when, really, all he needed was some time away from it while he walked lost in the wilderness. Destroying his first village in a week had a way of making his blood flow.
Although, he didn't have much memory of actually doing it. He approached at night; then he woke up this morning some 200 yards away from the village in some sort of crater. It didn't really matter. He had wiped the village from the face of the Earth. Whether or not he remembered was a secondary concern.
His stomach growled. Hungry as he was, never in his devastation did he ever to think the eat his victims. They look too much like me. Kakarot reasoned he'd have to go into the forest to scavenge some fruit or kill some animals. Taking one last look at the wreck of the village in front of him, he turned and entered the tree line.
A bit further into the forest, he found where he had left his pack propped up against a tree. He was about to sling it on when he heard movement. Animals? Would never come this close. Kakarot peered into the woods and saw two decidedly human figures moving towards him. He grinned as they emerged into the day's falling light, shrouded by the colors of dusk and trees.
He didn't recognize the one on the left. He did recognize the one on the right. They bent their legs and arms, arming themselves like missiles pointed at him.
Kakarot chuckled. No, he laughed. He gave the strongest, hardest, most genuine laugh of his life, louder than any other thing he had ever spoken. The moment was beyond funny. Fools! Rushing to die. This was beyond his wildest expectations. For someone to challenge him again so soon, wanting to avenge the past… this was the stuff of dreams.
Slowly, he stopped laughing. He stood up straight and extended his arms towards his audience, gesturing with entire his body: Come at me!
They obliged. A shockwave rang out through the forest. The battle had begun.
Reviews:
Q: Haha, Yup, the Krillin/Yamcha friendship is one of my favorite.
Great chapter! Good character devlopment, with the shapeshifter school and the flawed characters ( with how they try to correct their flaws ).
A: Thanks! Trying to balance boring exposition and actual things happening, haha. And thanks for the 2nd review! I love how this section has become just an ongoing dialogue between the two of us :)
