Rain splattered against Chi-Chi's face, and she managed to make it under a rocky overhang just in time to avoid the worst of the downpour. She ground her teeth together, cursing under her breath as she kicked a boot off to rub her aching feet.
Four days ago, she'd run out of gas and had been forced to capsule up the car and continue on foot. Luckily, she was used to travelling without a car due to Goku's continued insistence that they didn't need one ("The town is only fifteen miles away, we can get there on the Nimbus in just a few minutes!" Nevermind that the Nimbus never listened to her, and Goku never helped her with the shopping anyway…), but that didn't mean the miles didn't take their toll. She had blisters up and down her feet and her bones ached clear up to her knees.
'Far, far to the northeast of the Oval Sea' - well, she'd been going northeast from the Oval Sea, and Chi-Chi dared say she'd gone pretty far. She was starting to wonder if Kami or Piccolo had made up the directions just to get rid of her. The thought was infuriating and she punched the ground so hard the rocky terrain cracked under her fist.
"Those bastards, I'll teach them to try and keep Son Chi-Chi from her baby boy," she swore.
A scuffle sounded somewhere behind her, almost inaudible over the sound of the rain, and Chi-Chi jumped to her feet. She drew one of her swords from the scabbard, poised to slash.
A moment passed where the only sound was the downpour, and a the low rumble of thunder in the distance. Chi-Chi only just began to consider that the rain had simply knocked a branch out of a tree when that theory was invalidated by a fifteen-foot dinosaur stomping out from the treeline with saliva flying from its gaping mouth.
Chi-Chi let out a shriek despite herself, stumbling backwards as the dinosaur charged in her direction. It was bigger than anything that had chased her on her grocery trips, and far hungrier too, by the looks of things.
She got her bearings just in time, dodging to the side as it moved to snatch her up in its mouth. All it got instead was a mouthful of mud.
Chi-Chi raised her sword again, gritting her teeth, and ran at the dinosaur as fast as she could. It was by no means a slow beast, but it was also just that - a lumbering, stupid animal with glaring weaknesses. And she was Chi-Chi, Princess of Fire Mountain, and a warrior trained in the coveted turtle style - albeit an abridged version, courtesy of her father.
A roar escaped her as she darted around the back of the dinosaur, staying just out of reach of its long tail. It spun around to follow her, letting out a primal screech of its own as it lunged once more.
A mere moment before its jaws closed around her, Chi-Chi changed directions and ran directly at it. The beast's mouth clamped down over empty air, but it had no time to be distraught before Chi-Chi sunk her blade deep into its belly.
The dinosaur cried out again, this time in pain, and Chi-Chi pushed the sword further up into its gut. With one swift motion, she withdrew the blade and sliced the beast up through its stomach.
Chi-Chi hopped out of the way as the dinosaur fell, and she allowed herself a moment of self-congratulation. It had been a while since she'd done any fighting beside the usual sparring Goku insisted upon whenever he got to choose their date-night activity, and even longer still since she'd killed anything.
It looks like I still got it, though, Chi-Chi thought smugly. Besides the hiccup of being directly under the beast when she'd gutted it, managing to douse herself in blood, it had been a flawless victory.
She was just getting ready to put the carcass in a capsule to keep for food when she heard it - over the sound of rolling thunder, not one or two, but dozens of shrieking dinosaurs. The cries were soon accompanied by the rumble of a stampede, and with a sinking feeling in her gut, Chi-Chi realized it was getting louder.
Thirty-odd dinosaurs burst forth from the treeline roaring in bloodlust.
Chi-Chi screamed, and took off as fast as she could.
Piccolo watched the display from high in the air, idly wondering if he should intervene. He didn't have any love for Goku's wife, but he didn't exactly want to watch her torn limb from limb by wild dinosaurs. He ultimately decided against it. For one thing, the only reason he'd told Kami where he was in the first place was because he figured Chi-Chi wouldn't actually be able to make it there. And for another, she seemed to be handling herself fairly well.
Which he hadn't planned for, admittedly, but Piccolo had to admit that she wasn't an incompetent fighter. After the initial shock of being confronted with three dozen dinosaurs, she'd drawn her second sword and gotten right to business, slashing, stabbing, and dodging beasts left and right. Piccolo squinted down at the battlefield, trying to follow the action - which was difficult, as it seemed Chi-Chi had mastered the after-image technique sometime after the World Martial Arts Tournament.
Piccolo rolled his eyes as he thought of Gohan, trapped atop a plateau with no idea what to do. How was it that he could be the son of two accomplished warriors like Goku and Chi-Chi and still not be able to figure out basic survival?
Come to think of it, I should go check on him, Piccolo decided. He cast one last glance down at Chi-Chi, just in time to see her make her way atop a dinosaur and plunge her sword through its skull. She seems like she has everything handled here.
With that, Piccolo turned and flew north, towards the wastelands where he'd dropped Gohan. He realized it was entirely possible Chi-Chi would actually make it there, instead of giving up or getting killed like he'd anticipated. He briefly considered switching locations so that Chi-Chi couldn't steal Gohan back, but immediately banished the thought. Piccolo was by no means a hero, nor particularly sentimental, but he wasn't without honor.
If Chi-Chi could make it to the wastelands in question, she would have more than earned the right to see her son again.
Besides, it didn't matter how many dinosaurs she slaughtered - she wasn't strong enough to go up against Piccolo. And she still had a long way to go.
The rain soon ceased, as did the onslaught of dinosaurs, and Chi-Chi found her way to a swollen stream to wash herself and her clothes in.
Once in the water and stripped to her skin, Chi-Chi assessed the damage she'd sustained in her fight. There were jagged claw-marks across one leg, from her thigh to her hip, and a puncture wound over her right shoulder that she knew would ache terribly once the adrenaline wore off. Besides that, she was covered in bruises and smaller scrapes, and had a shallow headwound that she could tell looked worse than it actually was. Her father had always been sure not to cut or bruise her when they'd trained together, but Goku had done her no such favors when they sparred. These wounds were far worse than anything Goku had ever done to her, but Chi-Chi supposed she should be grateful they weren't more serious.
"Oh, Goku," Chi-Chi sighed wistfully as she beat her dress against a rock, watching the water run red after it. She could practically hear him praising her, showering her with compliments and adoration and begging her to fight him again, but with swords, and no holding anything back this time. "You big lunkhead…"
She had to remind herself that he wasn't gone forever, and distracted herself from the creeping sense of loneliness by fishing the capsule with her first-aid kit out of her bag, and subsequently seeing to her wounds.
By the time her wounds were dressed and her camp for the night was set up, the moon hung high overhead, framed by twinkling stars and the odd cloud. Chi-Chi took a moment to admire the scene, and it suddenly hit her that the sight of the full moon - with all the stars and breathtaking blue cast - was one she had never really shared with her son. She'd always enforced a strict bedtime so that he could grow up strong and develop a sharp mind, and as such, in his four years of life, the boy had never had time for stargazing.
When this is over, vowed Chi-Chi, Gohan and I are going to lay down outside the house and watch the night sky. It could be educational!
Chi-Chi fixed the image in her mind and used it to fuel the fire in her belly.
She laid under her makeshift tent (she'd brought a real one, but it had blown away in a windstorm two nights ago) with a sword clutched to her chest. She watched the moon for what felt like hours, and slowly drifted off to sleep.
Piccolo, meanwhile, was frantically trying to deal with the sudden appearance of a giant, earth-crushing ape.