Chapter 15: Hostile Wake Up
A/N: Another update, I promise I am working hard on these just its difficult to stay motivated at times but I hope this will satisfy you as I work on the next chapter soon.
'Gohan, are you quite done?' The thick sigh of his mother's followed her fast quip, her voice almost seemed to carry on in a long exhausted drawl. 'I don't have time for all of these juvenile problems you are going through. I have many things I have to get through tomorrow and you acting like some spoiled child is not becoming of the son I raised. Goten has more manners than you right now.'
Her back was turned away from him, her eyes looking down at the brother in her arms, giving him all of the attention. Playing with him and casually tossing him around, nothing too serious as the half saiyan didn't seem at all phased by any sort of rough housing. It would probably be safe to say his mother could play a lot rougher and he'd enjoy it.
"Are you even listening to what I'm saying? I want an explanation, you just shacked up with the guy who took all of the credit for what I did and all the sacrifices me and my friends made and you're just okay with that?" Gohan was struggling to maintain his composure, he was feeling so heated and angry for no reason. "I'm the reason this planet is even still around, or did you forget THAT?!" He was almost to the point of shouting. He'd come here expecting answers, an explanation, or hell, more of a warm reception than this.
But from the get go, his mother deemed his presence hardly even worth looking at. He wasn't going to let this stand. Gohan was getting older, his own birthday and Goten's was just around the corner. The saiyan in him wasn't taking this blatant disrespect idly either. Maybe it was hormones but right now he was done trying to be analytical about all of this.
'No concern-'
'You better watch your tone, young man!' Chi-Chi was in his face in a flash, though he was an inch or two taller now she did her best to put herself right up into his space. She wasn't intimidated or backing down. 'Hercule has his faults but right now Goten needs someone, there are things that I just can't provide and perhaps I won't have to spend my time working myself to the bone to be able to provide everything for you or are you ungrateful for that? Huh, Mr. Hero of Earth? Would you even begin to grasp how to take care of yourself in his world without me?' Her finger was shoved right in his face, her nails just an inch from his nose.
"You are actually comparing my life or death struggles to that of your daytime T.V. star career?!" Gohan fired right back into her. His eyes flashing teal as he shouted down at her, his voice booming all over the place.
'Worthless-'
'A few days Gohan, a few days to the years I have had to put up with? I raised you and your brother alone since your father abandoned us, I've had to do every single thing to keep my family safe and secure only to have my oldest dare to talk down to me? You are such an ungrateful child becoming a delinquent and more of the monster half that comes from the man who left us behind!'
Gohan snarled, knocking her hand out of his face. "I am so much more than you, Mother! Smarter and more capable than you can imagine. Don't act like you're so much better than me, I don't have to take this shit from you. I could ask Bulma to take me and she'd not think twice about refusing her best friend's son, and hell, she's a far better mother than you ever were!" He went chest to chest with het, he wasn't some little fucking kid. He was a powerful warrior and genius, and he knew Bulma would help him, he could earn his keep for the smartest woman in the world and do whatever he wanted in the future.
'You ungrateful bastard-!' Gohan's head was snapped to the side as she struck him with a light red aura forming around her. 'Take all of your shit and get out then. I'll raise at least one good son and not the piece of shit that you are.' Her teeth were bared and Gohan almost-just barely flinched from the sight of his enraged mother. But his own anger was exploding, his mother had never dared strike him in such a way. Not that he had felt any pain.
'Revenge-'
"So much for not using violence in the world you hypocritical bitch." She tried to strike him again but Gohan caught her hand without even looking. "I could break your fucking arm without even trying, how about you try rethink-" He felt something strike him between the legs. He forgot about holding her hand as slowly he slumped down to his knees. "You... hit me… in the balls." His body was shaking, stunned beyond thought as he'd be unprepared for his own mother to do that to him.
'Don't you dare put your filthy monster hands on me.' Her voice was practically hissing as she smacked him again. His head was staring down at the floor, looking at her shoes.
Gritting his teeth, Gohan felt something ripping its way up from the depths of his soul. It filled his veins, clouded his eyes, and overwhelmed his brain with endorphins stronger than adrenaline. It was carnal, primal, and the feeling felt by those who thought they had been wronged unjustly.
'Hatred, anger, strike her down, let it all go-!
His head slowly turned upwards and into the furious gaze of his mother which seemed to be the only thing he could focus on. All of his problems, the shit he had to go through was spiraling out of him because of her. The selfish egotistical mother, the woman who never had time for him, putting him on the back burner, when had he started to no longer matter in her life?
Who cared? Gohan rose up, his eyes a blazing teal hair a burning blond. Closed fist in hand, the super charged saiyan landed one devastating blow.
Chi-Chi's neck spun around several times, her skin breaking in several sections as her bones twisted and popped out of place. She didn't say anything more as her body spun slightly hanging in almost the air for what seemed like minutes before falling over the sofa and onto the ground right in front of Goten.
'Momma?' Goten's small hands touching the body, the young boy staring into the blank stare of the woman who had just been playing with him moments ago. Though for his age, he was still in tune with his mother's energy- of which there was none. 'Mom?' His voice repeated shaking her shoulder but there was still nothing.
The realization of what he had just done hit Gohan harder than Cell ever had. "Wha-What did I do? Oh Kami what did I do!?" His hands grabbed at the sides of his face as he looked into the face of the woman he had just killed. His own mother.
Two screams came from the side, and Gohan flinched as he saw Videl and Erasa. Their hands covering their mouths in complete horror as they looked at the body of Chi-Chi. "Gohan, you killed her!" "You're a monster!" Videl and Erasa both said terrified.
Opening his mouth to speak but the teen found no words coming out. Several times his mind shouted the words but his lips just flowed nothing but silence. 'I didn't mean to- It isn't what it seems- This wasn't what I wanted to happen-!'
"Big brother, why did you kill Momma?" Goten was grabbing at his leg in a tight grip, his eyes staring up at him, but the calm voice made a shiver run up and down the saiyan's spine. "Please tell me why you killed Momma, Gohan? Why did she have to die?"
He was shaking all over, "I didn't- That was just- Goten I-" He fumbled over the words he wanted to speak.
"You're evil Gohan!" Videl shouted at him, Gohan looked away to only stare into the blue eyes of Erasa. "Just horrible! The worst!" The world swirled into a mixture of colors, sounds and voices of people he knew berating him. Cursing him for the evil he had committed.
Screaming, Gohan just covered his face. 'This is a dream, this is all just a horrible dream-!'
'A dream, boy? Oh no, this is reality.' Gohan opened his eyes only to be staring down the face of the saiyan prince, his body dressed in the armor that Bulma had designed. Except there was one crucial thing wrong with Vegeta. A massive bloody gaping hole in the middle of his chest, a mirror of the one that had been in Trunks. 'You forgot to take that blow for me, you sacrificed me for your own selfish ends, Gohan. I must admit I didn't believe that you actually had it in you.' The prince was smirking despite the grotesque innards that hung loosely from the gaping wound. Blood spilled out from his chest as if it were a fresh wound before it began to leak from the saiyan's eyes and mouth. 'There is a monster inside of you, just like me.'
"No-! NO I didn't kill you I saved you-!" Gohan screamed at the prince.
"What about us, Gohan?" It was Krillin this time, their bodies mangled, Krillin spoke without fault despite missing an arm and a leg. His head cracked open revealing the pulsing pink flesh beneath.
"Yeah you were supposed to protect us." Yamcha said missing the entire left side of his body, the blood dripping down from his body in a never ending stream. He swiveled his head back around trying to look away from the scene of gore. The image of his friends mangled like that was haunting only to find Tien looking down at him, his three eye's gone, replaced with large grotesque holes.
But as his head refused to turn away, a black wriggling mass began to slip from the gaping wounds. Small black tentacles flapping and when Tien's mouth moved to speak more began to come from his open lips. His voice a ghastly pitch."Why didn't you help?"
"Stop it! I did help! I DID!" Gohan tried to move, only to feel a large hand grab his shoulder. A cadaverous face with rotten flesh looking into him, its teeth held together with strands of diseased flesh. A loose rolling eye stared into him, the only discerning fact were the tufts of orange hair.
He could see a millipede scatter out of his right eye and into the cavity that would be his nose, a worm protruding out from his bottom lip and fresh maggots poking their faces out from the skin of his cheek. As his mouth began to open blackened moths fluttered out and into Gohan's face.
"Where are you going?" He tried to jerk away only to slam into two long dead zombified foes. Raditz and Nappa were so much taller as Gohan found himself shrinking in size, the necrotic bodies of darkened flesh on bone reached for the demi saiyan who covered up.
"Leave me alone-!" He screamed desperately trying to rid himself of the sights and sounds, fear rippling up from the deepest parts of his soul.
"Gohan?" The voice one he knew better than anyone before, "Gohan it's okay, your dad is here."
Shaking uncontrollably, Gohan dropped his guard and looked at the outstretched hand offered up to him. The orange and blue fighting gi, the face of the man who showed up to save him. "D-Dad?" He stammered unsure of whether to trust his eyes or not. It couldn't be his father… could it?
The voice laughed, "Of course it's me Gohan, give me your hand son. It's alright." The offered appendage remained there and Gohan almost timidly reached out for him, so many times that hand had saved him. The face of the man who-
'Abandoned you!'
"No-!" Shoving himself away, the world nothing but darkness. "You're dead, you're not real! You're not my father!" Gohan screamed painfully, his heart torn from pain of him not being there and the resentment. Unknowing which one was greater.
The Goku figure laughed again putting his hand behind his head to scratch it. 'You're right I am dead…' His head dropped down for a moment, before raising back up into a necrofied version of the last few. One eye a mess of black writhing tentacles his hand naught but charred meat and bone now. 'Doesn't that make you happy Gohan? My LiTtLLE- G-OO-Hagnnn?' His voice stretched into some belch before rushing towards him.
The teen leapt to his feet but his feet refused to allow him to escape, the undead Goku drawing in closer and closer before looking down at his feet and seeing all of his friends grasping onto his legs not allowing him to draw any strength and flee.
Every single one of them appeared dead, their faces twisted amalgamations of rotten flesh and their normal figures. Gohan could even see Goten's half flesh, half bone fingers wrapping around his ankle, his one eye staring up at him with a look of pain and disappointment.
Panicked his head snapped back up just as his undead corpse father leapt for him. Gohan's hand grappled with the jagged bones that cut into him, the pain non-existent as blood began to seep from his hands. 'ShhOoTp? MEaghh Huh? Shten, stOhp Herghhhh' The undead face twisted towards another body, the one of his mother. Her body looking like his father's now, her neck still twisted and bent with her hand's bloody and inching closer towards him.
Like a shambling horror she came closer and closer, Gohan could feel his heart in his throat, the grappling with his father ending as the twisted undead creature drew herself every nearer. The blood dripping from her fingers, the tentacles slipping from her eyes and mouth.
'Killed Me-! KILLED ME-! KIIIILLLLEDD MEEEEE-!' The chittering voice rising up into a screech as Gohan couldn't stop her. Drawing those mangled limbs so close as he was completely paralyzed, unable to stop the undead mother as he felt the cold grasp around his neck.
Gohan's eyes snapped open, jerking upwards in such a violent fashion he didn't feel anything put pure terror coursing through him. Rapidly panting, his entire face slickened with sweat, the cool breeze barely phasing the heavily droplets of sweat that continued to roll down his body.
Lost with the images of the undead friends and enemies grasping at him, but the last image of his necrotic mother, he could swear he felt the cold touch on his neck. Bringing one hand up to feel his neck, when a cool hand touched his shoulder.
Videl, who had been patiently waiting for Gohan to wake up, saw the teen jump. But that wasn't just all. She was flipped up into the air, brought back down onto the bed. The other teen's hand grasping her wrist as his other hand drew back as if to strike right through her.
"Gohan stop-!" Her voice cracking slightly as she looked at a side of Gohan she'd never seen before.
His hand had barely flinched before his self induced haze finally ended. Though even as Gohan blinked several times, seeing Videl not as a half zombie nor any other undead. Still his heart was hammering almost audibly. Logic had taken a back seat to Gohan's base instincts.
When he finally did relent, it took another long pause. Videl was in his room… and he had… His face went bright red with shame and embarrassment. Though he might put this closer to humiliation. Tossing around his friend and nearly striking her after clearly being in a nightmare.
'Not that it was the normal kind of nightmare. I can't even remember if I've ever felt anything like that but I nearly struck Videl, Kami. What happened to me?' Hiding his face, Gohan looked down at the floor. Chalk it up to the new house, the new situation, or hell the general chaos of his life. But what part of his day screamed zombified family members trying to kill him.
The visage of the dream mother he killed that promptly came back after him was still fresh in his mind and it prevented him from speaking.
Videl on the other hand. She gave Gohan a firm smack on the shoulder, startling him. "What the hell was that about?" Trying her best to sound angry but there was a small detail keeping from really hitting him. "..." Gohan mumbled something she couldn't even hear him or know what it was.
Putting a hand to her forehead, Videl took a breath. Wearing her black sports tank top and girl's underwear probably wasn't the best look going for her right now, but she'd been alerted by one of her servants that Gohan was screaming in his sleep. It didn't seem like a big deal but when the person said strange lights were flickering all around the room as well, it helped push Videl to get out of bed at two in the morning.
When she dismissed her helper she heard Gohan calling out from the other side of the doors. It sounded like Gohan was afraid of something and was pleading in a sleep babble about 'I didn't do…' something or thrashing his head around.
Perhaps it would've been an apt question in the past to ask if Gohan suffered from night terrors. When she entered Gohan's hands were glowing. Trying to compare what she saw with the little ki trick he had demonstrated to her before was nothing like this, Gohan's hands appeared to be lighting a electrical fire with sparks rippling off his body and then his hand would be encompassed in a golden light before fading out.
It had scared the hell out of her at first, but with its sporadic nature and akin to the things Gohan had showed her before she didn't let her own fear hold her back.
The only problem was Gohan's inability to wake up. "So do you have some sort of major sleeping issue? Cause I tried waking you up about twenty minutes ago and you wouldn't even so much as a flinch until just now."
Gohan's eyes turned back towards her, "You tried waking me up earlier? He wasn't a heavy sleeper, a hard shake could get him up and out of bed and his normal senses wouldn't let someone just come up and touch him-given his earlier snap reaction- and yet. 'She tried to wake me up and she couldn't? Was I too lost in my nightmare or-'
"So? Do you?" Videl's voice cut through his thoughts, her tone was slightly irritated. Although she was showing some heavy patience when waiting for Gohan's reply.
"I've only had a few since I was about five." The look he was receiving from Videl told him that wasn't going to satisfy her curiosity. Yet he felt he should answer her honestly, she had come in here to see if he was alright. To outright spit at a genuine act of concern would be wrong of him 'Or would it?' The thought flickered for but a moment yet Gohan forced it away. "None like that, my Da- err parents just had to give me a good shake that was really it."
She exhaled, time for her follow up question. "Is it also normal for your hands to light up with energy?"
He swallowed, "No… I'm guessing you saw more than just a little light." Videl nodded. "Jeez, well…" There wasn't really a good explanation, thankful that he had explained what ki was to her before but considering how his dream had been going he could guess it was more than just a little yellow ball in his fingers. "Subconsciously I can materialize my own ki. But it's not a threat to you unless I'm not in control, I have to actually release my energy freely. If I weren't in control of myself I doubt I'd even have a house let alone be alive today so don't worry about getting hurt."
"Unless I startle you." He could practically hear the eye roll.
"I'm sorry Videl. It was just an... Awful nightmare and I couldn't wake up until they got their undead hands on me. It-" He almost slipped up and let out the big secret, however, it was too late.
"Undead? Were you having some cheesy zombie nightmare." That was almost funny, Gohan of all people terrified of make believe zombies, yet the way he was crying out in his sleep probably was a little more than some childish fear and to react so violently was probably a good indicator that she'd be more than correct in her thoughts.
Shaking his head, Gohan figured best to tell someone something. Talking did help when someone was actually there to listen. "No, it wasn't like that...I was having an argument with my mom. It was like she came back here and didn't think it all necessary to explain you know…" Gohan gestured with his hands. "This whole situation to me. We started arguing and then my mother hit me and then I lost it and hit her back killing her."
Videl said nothing, there was clearly more to it than just that. Taking her silence as a chance to keep talking he did just so. "I'd never hurt my mother you know. I've never hit her once, maybe yelled a few times but I'd never hurt my family."
"I'd never imagine someone like you to be that way Gohan, but it was a dream." She said reassuringly, "You are one of the nicest people I've ever met."
"Thanks," he said, forcing a smile. "Yet that wasn't the worst part. Then I saw my brother crying that I just killed my mother, you and Erasa showed up. Then other friends and family members, all of them berating me until some of them started showing up dead. Like they'd all been killed but still talking with half moving corpses with black tendrils escaping from their eyes and mouths. Each one blaming me for their death, that I hadn't been there to protect them, to save them… so many of them were hideously disfigured and shambling towards me and I just couldn't do anything."
The dream part, where the body refused to act upon the mind's commands. To listen to logic or reason that what he was seeing and hearing were completely impossible, but the mind was such a strong thing that it could make the impossible possible and the impractical seem oh so simple.
"Was that it?"
"No," He answered, "I saw my… my dad…" Trying to control his own personal anger towards the man but it was slipping out. Even calling Goku what he actually was, it just didn't sit well with him and the dream version of Goku coming out to be the savior only to turn into one of those things in his dream didn't help the feelings of disdain for him either. "Always the hero, but never the parent, the man whom everyone idolizes for certain deeds but not for others. Putting what he thinks is right above what is just… Too Good or too foolish I'm not sure which would define him better."
Bringing a hand over his, Videl let her fingers grasp Gohan's which he did not attempt to stop. "You've always had a problem with your father. I know you've never really enjoyed talking about him or even bringing him up, the fact he wasn't around for you and your mother when you needed him."
"If that were the case Videl I wouldn't be that mad with him, it's much deeper than that," Not being around for a father he would be hard pressed to put his situation in that regard above many of his human classmates who didn't have dads. It was more than just being there. "It's hard to explain Videl and a conscious choice I've made in regards to him. He's not my father because I'll never grow up and do the things he put me and my family through."
"That's a little much Gohan, I mean my dad… well he's not much for father of the year but I still know he dearly cares about my well-being and will do anything at the drop of a hat for me even with all his flaws. Do you really believe that about your father though?" It actually surprised her that Gohan would hold such vitriol for someone. Especially a parent and someone who was a world champion fighter and quite the strong man to have Chi-Chi for a wife. She'd only spent a few days getting to know the t.v. star and she had quite the driven personality and a hard woman. No doubt raising Gohan to be the man he was, it had to have been challenging and given all of his own unique traits and a little brother there had to be quite the man who had handled all of it at some point.
"Videl… he could've been here. For me and mom, Goten all of his friends and family but instead he chose to be selfish and become a martyr, he used the excuse that all of the world's problems were because of him. That his very being was the absolute cause of every single thing, he used it as an excuse for what happened." Maybe he was tired, or hell he just wanted to open up about it to someone and get these pent up feelings off of his chest to someone who'd be able to understand him. Unlike his father's friends who still kissed the dirt that he had walked on- with the exception of Vegeta- but maybe someone who knew Gohan personally might have another opinion.
Taking a slow breath he looked square into Videl, "Videl let me pose this question to you and don't be upset or offended by it okay?" She gave him a nod agreeing. "Let's say your mother was given the choice to come back from the dead on the day she died, that she could live out the rest of her life with you and be there for you and your family. Would you think she'd turn it down? Because when given the same question my father said... Yes."
[***]
Tending the garden of the lookout as dutifully as always was Mr. Popo. The place had seen more company in the past which often livened things up but since the arrival of Dende and the end of the Cell Games the lookout's caretaker had been enjoying a more relaxed schedule. But even the groundskeeper could see there was something going on as Dende overlooked one of the edges. Beside him was Piccolo, neither saying a word but their postures were speaking a much different tone.
He kept to his duties but listened in on the conversation.
"You can feel it more and more, can't you Piccolo?" Dende asked, the once young namekian had grown up to just about the chest level of the older Namek who shared this home with him. "The growing feeling of malice and darkness feels like it's been festering so low key only to begin bursting forth over the last few weeks." It made him uncomfortable at best and more worried as time went on.
Piccolo had his arms crossed over his chest, "It's disturbing but I can't exactly feel where it's been coming from. When it was just a passing odor it is now beginning to ripen down on Earth but there is no direct source. I don't know what it is." Speaking as the former guardian of Earth, Kami's memories could never recall such a pestilence.
"I don't know how much I should be worried, there is no face to this evil that is coming up from the ground but it seems to be stemming from many people. Like there's a sickness within their souls and they don't even realize it. Evil always used to come and go but this is just building upon it layer after layer." It was a trait possibly unique to humans but as the guardian he could feel the malcontent and bitterness as if it were his own.
"Whatever it is, I believe it's affecting even Gohan." That made Dende's jaw drop.
"What? Piccolo you think Gohan is being tainted like the other people?" He could never imagine his good friend from Namek having such feelings inside of him.
"I do," He looked down as if his gaze could pierce the clouds and straight down into the room of the boy sitting next to a girl next to him. "Don't forget Gohan is half human and the boy has been forced to grow up far too quickly and far more harshly than most others on this planet ever have. But I can almost feel something inside of him and it's been growing ever since the Cell games. It's just taken years to manifest itself into what I see in him now." Of all the people to have such a thing, I wouldn't have guessed it to be Goku's son. But when he turns to Vegeta more for help and away from his family I guess I don't know much more about the boy than I believed.'
"But Gohan's not an evil person, I don't feel he'd ever do anything to knowingly hurt anyone." Dende couldn't pick the stagnant taint that lingered all around the world especially around Gohan. However, that was evil, it was blind and secretive, lurking in the shadows waiting for the best moment to strike "But if evil were to set root in his heart…"
Piccolo didn't have to say it, but he had to speak the truth. "It would be the worst of us all, those who are the most pure, good, and well intentioned fall the hardest. Evil people do not bat an eye when performing more cruel acts but the cliff Gohan would fall from would be so high I don't know if he'd ever come back up."
"Perhaps we should speak with him? Find out if we can help?" Offering up a simple solution but the other namek wasn't sure.
"We could Dende, but you have to think about it. This malice isn't natural if we play our hand and try to help Gohan they might pull back and then become even more subtle in their corruption of Gohan or… Gohan isn't their real target and we waste our efforts trying to help Gohan when it could be something worse." He understood tactics and strategy, whatever was causing this wasn't going to reveal itself as it had been steadily building over the past few years.
The guardian disagreed, "But we can't let it have Gohan; he's one of the strongest among us. Who else could rival his strength?"
"There's more than one saiyan on this planet, a prince with a dark past."
Dende could concede that point, however, "That's too obvious for a target and Vegeta if there were problems with Vegeta surely we'd sense differences in Bulma and Trunks wouldn't we?"
"Possible… but we can't rule that out either." Piccolo brought his hand to his chin taking a moment to think about what would come next. Trying to decipher what kind of evil would work so hard to corrupt Gohan and importantly how would it do so?
The answer was simple but beyond their reach as the mastermind laughed wickedly beginning to sink his claws deeper into so many humans. His chamber reflected dozens and dozens more people that knew the demi-saiyan. Personal friends, acquaintances, others that held his prey in such high regards.
But the most important ones were the closests ones, two orbs would be the secret to this planet's conquest. Spinning them in his fingers. "It shall be so much fun to watch, humans are afterall vain, ignorant, blind sheep with a violent streak that has lasted since their earliest ancestors. Instead of evolving they have become crueller and more discontent and it will be so simple, when the world hates you… what are you going to do?"
Babadi's fingers touched the crystal ball that held Gohan's image on it. Watching as the saiyan moved to fall back to rest but there would never be another moment of peace in sleep. Not when his plans were moving along so well. Aided by simple pure human stupidity.
R&R