"Woah,..." When he was smaller, Grampa left home for the first time in a while after he was pretty sure Goku could handle the forest by himself. He asked Grampa where he was going and got his first idea of what a 'city' is. From what Grampa said, it was like their house times a hundred with lots and lots of people living inside them. Hongqi, or Mutt, the guy he'd saved and spent the whole day bringing back home said a lot of the same stuff about Kuchinashi too.
But man, seeing it was totally different from imagining it. The houses reminded him of home with the big, curved roofs but they were way taller and way wider. They had all sorts of colors, blue, green, yellow purple, although night time made that kinda hard to spot at first.
They were glowing from the inside out and had big lamps on poles all over the place making it look even shinier. From the hill where he stopped a second to look, Goku could see so many people walking down there. He knew there were lots of people out there but Grampa really didn't do the number any justice!
Of all the houses, the biggest one was a ways off from the town itself, it was bigger than all the rest combined with walls going up a few feet and a big door to get inside. Mutt told him that's where the boss lived, from what Goku got, a boss was someone who gave you stuff if you did things for him, like fighting monsters or finding things. Apparently, lots of towns had people who did things like that.
"The... house with the metal door in the back..." Mutt pointed at it, he sounded really weak and was looking pretty white in the face too. Even his wound was starting to smell funny.
"Got it!" Goku went down the hill to the place Mutt told him, he tried not to stare at the town but it was all so full of... activity, he couldn't help himself. Plus he smelled things he'd never smelled before, some of them were stuff he wanted to stay away from but a lot of them made him hungry. But he wasn't about to eat until Mutt got better.
When they got to the door, Mutt told him to bang on it a few times. From the other side, Goku felt some big feet stomp on the ground before a bit of the door near the top slid open. The problem was, Goku and Mutt were all the way down near the bottom.
"Who is it?" The man on the door said in a really rough but confused voice. "This a prank or-"
"Down here..."
"Mutt?!" He almost shouted before sliding the door bit closed. Goku heard a whole bunch of clicking noise with something being shoved before the door opened up all the way. The guy there was dressed like Mutt, black pants, suit, gloves, with that weird red rope round his neck. He didn't have Mutt's beard, he didn't have hair at all but he was pretty tall, might've been the tallest person Goku'd ever seen!
When he looked at them, his mouth hanged open in a pretty funny look. "Holy crap! What happened?! Why're you with this kid?!"
"Job for the boss," Mutt said. "Grimm almost got me... but the kid saved me..."
"Don't worry man! We'll get the doc to fix you up!" Before Goku knew it, Mutt was out of his arms and being carried by the big guy somewhere inside, before he could call after them, he smashed the door shut right in his face!
"Hey!" Goku shouted before banging on the door again, angry that they were just gonna leave him out here while Mutt was still hurt! Nobody answered him then or the next two times he did it. On the third, he got real mad and kicked it instead and down it went with a big loud thud. He heard people talking somewhere inside but he didn't care, he smelled Mutt's blood going somewhere down and followed the scent.
He rushed in that direction then stopped at a hole, except it wasn't going straight down but kinda to the side, and there were these big things going lower and lower he had to step on to get to the bottom. Goku heard lots of voices down there and smelled some stuff kinda like Grampa's medicine too, the voices were shouting above and below him, a few wondering about Mutt but the rest were yelling about the door being knocked down.
When he reached the bottom, he saw even more people, all of them dressed like Mutt but a few looked scrawnier, and with long hair and their chests were bigger than the others. A couple of them were going up before Goku ran into them, the rest he saw were doing something to Mutt on the table.
"What is that kid doing here?" Big Bald who closed the door in his face shouted then walked over, looking pretty mean. "How'd you get here?!"
"I tried knockin' on the door politely but you were bein' a jerk so I knocked it down and came here!"
Big Bald and the two guys next to him just looked for a second before laughing at him, they laughed for a while too and Goku didn't like it, it sounded mean. When Mutt screamed all of a sudden, Goku tried to run past them but Big Bald's hand took him by surprise, shoving him so hard his back hit the wall. He couldn't stop the yelp from getting out, the back cut pain just got so bad all off a sudden he couldn't help it. It didn't help they started laughing at him again.
"Beat it, kid!" Big Bald shouted, going from laughing to mad in a second. "Before I-"
His rough voice became really loud and whiny sounding when Goku's punch got him in the groin, he fell on his knees, making a loud, annoying breathing noise. Goku shut him up with another punch to the chest and he skids across the floor, past the group around Mutt before banging his head against the wall on the other side of the room. Everyone in the room stopped dead beside Mutt who's shirt was gone with some weird, white-gloved old guy touching his belly cut.
"Serves you right for bein' a jerk!" Goku shouted at Big Balg who just stared at him with big, bulging eyes from the floor. Then they narrowed, looking really mad and he snarled his way back up. He looked ready to go again and so was Goku.
"Bai!" Mutt shouted from the table, sounding stronger than Goku'd ever heard him. "The kid... saved my life! Hurt him and... I'll make sure the boss... takes your head for it!"
Big Bald, or Bai, looked really white all of a sudden. His mouth opened and shut like maybe he wanted to say something but he didn't, instead, he just nodded then scowled back at Goku. "Let the kid stay," He said like it actually hurt him.
The room didn't feel as dangerous then, and the two guys in front of him didn't stop Goku from walking past them and up to the table. When he got there, the man with the white gloves was pouring something smelling close to Grampa's medicine on the belly cut. Mutt looked like it hurt him a lot for a second before he relaxed.
"Alright," The gloved man said, he reached into a weird bag on the table and pulled out some really thin rope and a something that looked like a tiny knife. "Give him something to bite down on then hold him, this won't be pleasant for him."
Someone put that red rope in Mutt's mouth while Big Bald pressed down on Mutt's legs. Goku ran over to his head and put both hands on his shoulders. "Like this?"
Big Bald, the gloved guy, and everyone else looked at him funny again but Mutt spoke up again. "The kid can do it... Trust me... He's strong enough..."
That funny looked stayed until the gloved guy nodded. "If you say so, Mutt."
Goku didn't get what he was doing until he started digging the rope into the belly cut, into one side then the other. He called them out on it but the gloved guy explained it was there to close to the wound so it didn't bleed anymore. After that, Goku shut up and let him do his thing, Mutt didn't budge an inch on his end but he saw Big Bald's arms shaking while they kept his lower half done. During it all, Mutt was bitting on the rope hard, Goku was pretty sure if it wasn't there, he would've broken a tooth or two then.
He and everyone else in the room finally relaxed when the gloved man, the doc Big Bald mentioned earlier, was finished after putting something fluffy around the cut then dying it with thick looking rope on both ends.
"That should do, for now, you'll need to take it easy for a while and change the bandages but luckily, it wasn't too deep and didn't get infected. I swear, that kills more people around here than injuries do."
"Uhh, doc? The kid's hurt too." One of the guys around the table behind Goku said.
"What, this?" He turned around, giving everyone on the other end of the table a good look at the cut. "I mean, it hurt when I hit the wall but its not too bad."
"Lad," The doctor said, walking up to him. "When did you get this?"
"A few days ago, one of those monsters cut me while we were fightin' down a waterfall."
Nobody said anything, giving Goku that shocked, eye bulging funny look again.
"Erm, right," The doctor coughed. "Why don't I just... take a look at it, hm?"
"You better,..." Mutt warned from the table even though he looked asleep.
The doctor gulped then nodded at Goku. "May I?"
"If you can fix it up, sure!" Goku smiled then turned around to give him a better look. The pain got worse again when the doc touched it a couple of times but he powered through it.
"Well, it's not too deep thankfully, but you'll need some bandages regardless, some medicine too for the bit of infection there."
The others in the room started doing other stuff while the doc worked on Goku, a few of them left and never became back, Big Bald pulled out some weird, white square out of his pants then started talking into it, something about Mutt being here and the boss needing to know about it right away. That same weird rope from before was tied around Goku's chest and the bite mark too. Then the doc gave him some weird, seed looking things to eat and drink down. They didn't have any smell, weirdly enough but they didn't taste bad either.
Big Bald walked over to Mutt then whispered about the boss coming soon, then he looked at Goku with a mostly not mean face. "Hey kid," he said. "You hungry?"
"Sure! Do you guys have any bears or tigers?"
Big Bald and a few others blinked at him. "Bears,... or tigers?"
"Yeah," Goku smiled and nodded as he put the top of his dogi back on. "I've been eatin' lotsa those big lizards, kinda sick of em really."
They blinked again, bobbing their heads a couple of times. "Sure,... Hey! You two!" He shouted at a couple guys near the side-hole. "Hows about you do something for a living and get the kid some noodles from the kitchen?"
The two of them walked up the side-hole and vanished with Big Bald going over to talk to the white square again. Goku looked around, noticing a few of them staring at him but the others just sort of ignored him.
"Hey," He snapped over to Mutt who was looking a lot less white in the face then. "You're in for a treat kid, this place makes the best noodles in town."
"What's a noodle?"
He almost looked like he'd laugh but Goku probably didn't think bobbing his stomach up and down with rope in it was a good idea. "Best meal known to man kid, it's a damn crime you've never tried it before."
Sure enough, Goku smelled something juicy coming down, the two guys Big Bald sent came back down with those noodles Mutt talked about steaming inside. They put it on a chair next to the table with two little sticks.
"What're these for?" He asked, putting them in-between his fingers and stabbing at the yellow, but nice smelling rope inside the bowl. Before he could eat it, it slipped out onto the bowl again. After a couple more tries, he just growled and tossed the sticks away before grabbing the noodles in a fistful. Mutt was right, he'd never tasted something like it before, the rope itself wasn't much but the little bits of fruit and meat around it sent a shiver down Goku's spine.
In no time at all, he slurped it all down and even licked the bowl clean. They were giving him those funny looks again, except Mutt, but Goku honestly didn't care, with food this good it was like all his problems were gone. After he was done, he sat back in the chair, smiling and rubbing his tummy.
"Man, that was good,..." He said before belching, for some reason, it sounded extra loud inside and it got even more bulging looks from almost everyone there.
"My, my," A voice he hadn't heard before said from the middle of the side hole. It sounded different from the others, not as tough but tougher at the same time, but that's not what got Goku's attention, it was how close it was to Grampa's voice. When its owner finally came down and Goku got a good look at him, it wasn't the only thing similar, he looked old like Grampa did, he was even almost the same hate too but his body was a lot leaner while Grampa was kinda chubby, like Goku. He wore a suit like the others, but grey, like his hair with a blue rope around his neck.
"Mutt has certainly found an interesting young friend here," Everyone in the room stood up, besides Goku and Mutt, stood up then bowed to him. The man didn't react to it, instead smiling at Goku and walking over to where he was sitting. When he got there, he reached out and smiled even wider. "Hei Xiong."
"Son Goku, nice to meet ya!" He shook it.
"Likewise!" He laughed and even bowed a little. "For such a brave young man who's done such a service to me and my most loyal employee, how could it not be a pleasure to make your acquaintance?"
A/N: A bit on the shorter side but with Hei getting his own POV next chapter where much of the coming plot will reveal itself, hopefully you guys don't hold it against me too much. The hardest part of writing this was Goku describing what stairs are, he's never seen them in his life so I can't just write "then he went down the stairs!", I almost delayed the whole chapter because of that. Yes, really.