Reno's Origins
By: Atomic Kokoro
Storyline
Due to an accident, Reno is told he won't ever be able to walk again. It isn't long, though, before he is told by a boy named Gohan that there is a temporary solution to the problem. Unfortunetly, there is bad news to come with it.
Before You Read
Okay. Now that I got some sleep, everything should be okay!
On with the story!
Chapter 3
Chaotic Bloodlust
Reno was sitting in a crowd of many adults watching the children play. Gohan snapped his hood over his golden hair just in case Reno looked over to Gohan and Trunks. He was watching his friends and laughed when Ken slipped and fell off the playground. Gohan smiled and tried hard to blend into the crowd, but Astri had caught him before he had.
"Hey, Gohan!" Astro called out, jumping off the playplace and running over to him. Gohan took these few spare minutes to revert back to normal, losing the trace of the weak Saiyan. He cursed quietly about this fact, but forced the smiled back before Astro noticed something was wrong. Gohan pulled his hood back.
"Hey, Astro," he said. "What's up?"
Astro's friends from eariler plus Reno came up to greet the two teens. "Nothing," he replied. "We were just playing. The meeting with the Doctor finished?"
Gohan shook his head, closing his onyx eyes whileso. "No, Bulma's still talking to him. Me and Trunks just got out earily. We were getting pretty antsy," he chuckled, scratching the back of his head nervously.
"I'm more into the works of nature then robotics," Trunks admitted. "Time travel, really."
Gohan couldn't help but snicker. Trunks really could time travel; it was amazing. He came from about sixteen years in the future, but he was hanging in the past for a little while to be able to meet his younger self and his father. And, of course, all those who had died in the alternet future.
"But time travel is impossible," Reno insisted. "Unless you can create a rip in time and space like fabric, you can't go back, or foreward, in time. Sure, there's Deja Vu and preministions, but time travel is completely out of hand."
Trunks rolled his icy blue eyes. "Ever tried condensing dark matter into one small space and combining it with oxygen? Soild dark matter, actually. A machine that can become intangible can pass through all dimensions, not just walls. It can even pass through time."
"No," Reno said, slowly shaking his head. "Because everything has volume; the only things that can become intangible are ghosts and oxygen. But, even then, oxygen has mass. Sure, it's particals move around to form any shape and size, break apart for us to move, but it doesn't pass through time and space."
Gohan tuned out the two bickering about time travel and had his gaze trace over the three other boys. Astro had already known what he was thinking because he named off each character to him: Ken, Alejo, and Ambercrombie. Ken was the African-American, Alejo was the smallest, and Ambercrombie was the biggest.
"So, why are you here?" Ken asked after all was quiet, even the bickering of Trunks and Reno.
Gohan thought about this for a minute, deciding what the best reply would be. "Well, we were forced to join Bulma to Metro City. But, me and Trunks are looking for someone."
"Really? Who?"
"Funny you ask," Trunks said. "To be honest, we're not really sure."
Everyone (save Gohan and Trunks) looked at each other with confusing looks. "We had a lead," Gohan continued. "But we lost it. It ended around here somewhere. In fact, the person we were looking for was standing around here somewhere, but, as I said, we lost it."
Everything went quiet for a minute. "Well, maybe we can help," Astro offered. Gohan shook his head.
"No. This is something only me and Trunks can follow."
"How is that possible?" Alejo asked.
Ambercrombie cleared his throat. "Ah, don't machines have more a chance of finding someone or something then humans?"
Gohan lifted an eyebrow to the statement before Astro quickly explained that he himself was a robot. Doctor O'Sheay had brought him "back to life" and, therefore, he was standing there. He had been originally created by a man named Doctor Tenma, but he chose to live at the Ministry intead. He hadn't seen Tenma in a long time.
"Well, perhaps better then humans," Gohan muttered, pulling his hood back up. He changed to Super Saiyan for the third and final time to search for the force he had felt eariler. "Shhh," he said.
He searched outside of Astro's crew all over Metro City. Nothing. He sighed and reverted back to normal. "Yeah," he said. "It's gone."
Everyone was quiet for a moment. Suddenly, Astro smiled. "Hey, I know! Why don't we show you around Metro City? There's lots of stuff we can do and the meeting probably won't end until late tonight." Everyone cheered in agreement. "What should we do first?"
"Why don't we take them to the Marine Park?" Ambercrombie suggested. And that's what started off their day. The crew of seven all made their ways to the Marine Park. Gohan and Trunks tried their hand at a couple games and Ambercrombie bought a rather large sub. Everyone else stuck with pizza.
Later, they decided to check out the Metro Amuzement. Gohan stayed beside Reno because he couldn't go on any rides. He was in a wheelchair. Reno insisted Gohan went on some of the rides; he woudl be fine on his own. But Gohan refused to "leave any man behind". Trunks quietly explained when he said he would stay back for the first ride that Gohan had a few troubles growing up and he couldn't leave anyone alone or go anywhere without having to feel a rather large responsibility for watching everyone and making sure they were alright. That and Gohan wasn't really all that happy on rollercoasters.
Reno respected this.
On the second ride, Gohan agreed (actually, he insisted) to stay back. He watched the rollercoaster spin in circles until a small sigh caught his attention. He glanced over to Reno. He hadn't realized how much he may have wanted to go on, too. "Have you ever been on a rollercoaster before?" he asked.
Reno jolted in shock, probably forgetting Gohan was still there. He paused for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, I was on one last month," he said.
"Last month?" Gohan repeated. "How long have you been in the wheelchair?"
Reno thought for a moment. "A couple weeks," he said. "Long enough to understand how it works."
"So, you were injured less then a month ago. What happened?"
Reno inhaled, watching the rollercoaster prepare for another round. "My legs are paralyzed," he simply said.
"What happened?" Gohan repeated again.
"Nah, I was just bein' stupid. Snuk into a lab and got hurt." Gohan lifted an eyebrow. It seemed Reno didn't want to talk about the details, but he pressed Reno to spill more. Reno sighed. "Well, we had a crator hit near Metro City about two months ago. There was a man, and the Ministry took him in because the hospital didn't know what to do with him.
"He was comatose for a while. I heard so many rumours and I was curious. Doctor O'Sheay wouldn't let me go see him so I snuk in through a crowd of people. The door was open so I jumped at the chance to hide in a crate by the control panel.
"Later that night, the Ministry was closing down, you know, for the night. And, uh, I went to go seem the man up close. A headset had fallen off the top of the control panel and pulled a lever. The man woke up and startled me-" he lifted his right pant leg to reveal a large scar. "-and I got a peice of sharp metal several inches into my skin.
"There was a big explosion and I was blown away. The sharp metal got caught on something, but I kept flying and it tore through my whole leg. I hit the wall and broke the lower part of my spine- shattered it, actually- and I am paralyzed from the waist down. The docs say I'll never be able to walk again...ever."
Gohan studied the scar closely. It ranged from near his hip where Reno pointed down to just before his ankle. "I was lucky, though. I was supposed to be dead. I broke my neck and fractered by skull, but they healed while I was unconscious, which was for four days. I could've been paralyzed through my whole body, but, no, just my legs."
"That's amazing," he muttered. "that you survived that explosion."
"Yeah. I was pretty thankful. I guess I know what I'm thanking for next Thanksgivin'." Gohan laughed and agreement.
A voice called each of their names and Astro and the rest of the crew joined them. "What are we gonna do now?" Ken asked before anyone had a chance to think about it.
"Hm, I don't know." was the only answer. Then Gohan gasped.
"Oh, man!" he yelped. "I totally forgot! We have to meet Piccolo-san and the others soon. They'll be here! Maybe they would like to meet you guys?"
Everyone nodded, knowing they had nothing better to do. "They said they'd meet us by the Ministry," Trunks said. "Let's go."
About a half an hour later, they were by the front doors of the Ministry, waiting. In their time alone, Gohan told Trunks about Reno's story. There were many questions Reno probably didn't have the answer to, but Gohan felt that the man may have been the Saiyan they were looking for. But it didn't explain the force they had been following eariler.
As they were waiting, they began to talk about things that interested them and each of their backrounds. Reno opened his mouth to tell about his past when a deafening neigh screeched over the city. The city stopped what they were doing and looked up towards the ceiling of the Ministry. Then, everyone screamed.
Gohan and Trunks's jaw dropped in shock as a large, six-foot creature that had the body of T-Rex but the head of a human skull covered in sickening brown layers of flesh. It stared down, it's eyes focused on something. Reno gasped and whipped a pistol from the inside of his jacket(everyone's eyes widened; who knew Reno carried a pistol around for these type of situations) and opened fire on the creature.
The several bullets hit the creature. Angered, it leapt from the top of the Ministry. It fell at such a quick pace, Reno was forced to abandon his wheelchair and hit the deck along with the others. He pushed himself onto his back, watching the creature smash his wheelchair into bits. "Hey, the hospital gave me that!" he growled and aimed carefully at the creature.
Gohan pushed himself to his knees and looked over his shoulder at Reno and the creature. "What is that?" he gasped. One scream stood out from the others, and he looked over to see a young woman get pushed onto her back by another creature with the same appreance. It leapt onto her chest and closed in on her face, snapping skin between it's teeth and pulling it off.
The woman screamed. Gohan thrust out his palm and sent a small Ki blast. It hit it's designated target. His eyes traced back to Reno, who was trying to keep himself from being eaten alive by the first creature he had been shooting at. His gun layed just out of arms reach and he threw a couple good punches to get the creature off of him.
Gohan thrust foreward to aid his paralyzed friend, but something knocked the wind out of him and a couple feet to his right. Again, his gaze watch attracted by a creature, but this one was different. It stood on four legs like a dog, it's shape difficult to discribe. It's red eyes glew with bloodlust and charged at Gohan again. But, this time, Gohan was ready and he rolled to one side and the dog-like monster, unable to stop, crashed into a light post. It fell and didn't get back up.
He turned and looked around the street. Everyone was preoccupied by some creature thing. It was like war out there! Finally, he spotted who he was looking for. "Trunks!" he cried. "How much longer?"
Trunks didn't reply as he finished off the remaining creatures. "Not much longer now. I think that was the rest of them." Even though both sentances didn't really connect, Gohan understood what he was talking about. He opened his mouth agree when he was interrupted by a yell.
Trunks and Gohan spun around and spotted Astro who was staring in horror at the predicament Reno was in that Gohan had forgotten about. The two gasped.
Reno lunged to his right to grasp the pistol but the creature was quicker and visiously bit down on his shoulder. It turned Reno onto his back again, farther away from the pistol then they stared with. Then, as if something clicked, Reno's eyes narrowed and his next movement became a blur to most people.
The scientist boy thurst his arm foreward and injected it deep into the creatures chest. It howled. Gohan's eyes widened in terror. Reno's hand clasped a pulsing object and he quickly and steady ripped it out. The creature screamed and fell onto it's side. Reno leaned up and watched the creature melt into the ground and it's heart melt away from Reno's hand.
As quickly as it came, Reno felt the moment of chaotic bloodlust disapate into the afternoon air and he froze, his brain catching up to his physical movements. Astro watched for a moment and then moved foreward slowly, placing a hand on Reno's shoulder. "Reno?" he asked.
Reno didn't reply; he was in shock.
...
The following day was nothing but questions and answers. Gohan learned that the creatures that had attacked were scientific exparaments from New York (or Manhatten, or something like that) called Neo-Mitochondria Creatures, or NMC for short. They had been released into the world a few days after Reno's accident. But that been the first attack on Metro City for two weeks, sometime before Reno woke up.
Also in the following day, the rest of the Z-Fighters arrived and it was decided that they would stay for longer then expected. Bulma had the chance to return home but she refused, her interest in these creatures rather great.
Everyone had learned about what had happened the previous day. O'Sheay was a little worried about Reno, but the teen had returned to his daily life without skipping a beat. He had even called Piccolo to ask if he could snatch some Senzu Beans on the way there.
"You wanted these?" he grunted in a low voice, handing a small brown package. Gohan's eyes lit up with delight.
"Yes," he said. "I did. Thank you, Piccolo-san!"
"Anytime kid." Gohan hurried out of the room and down to Reno's office. He was currently researching some information about the creatures that had attacked Metro City the previous day. In the room with him were Miss. Yuko, Doctor O'Sheay, Astro, and a few other scientists.
He tapped Reno on the shoulder and he spun to see Gohan holding a small beige bag in one hand and a big smile plastered on his face. He blinked, finding his peer staring at him fairly scary since it seemed like he appeared out of thin air. "Can I help you?" he mustered.
"Actually," he said. "Reverse 'you' and 'I'."
"Can you help I?"
"Yes, I can," Gohan smiled with overwhelming joy. It was being to freak Reno out to the point where he was pushing Gohan by the shoulder to give him some personal space. "Eat this." Gohan handed Reno a small green bean.
He examined it untruthfully, O'Sheay and the others watching the two teens share a small conversation about the thing. Gohan insisted it would cure his paralysis but Reno kept repeating that the doctors said that he would never walk again: no surgry, no medicane, nothing.
Gohan rolled his eyes and forced the bean into Reno's mouth while he was still comtimplating whether to eat it or not. He hadn't the chance to spit it out and he swollowed it without trouble. His face switched between shades of red and green. "Are you crazy?" he cried. "You could've killed me!"
He figured he was leaning up into Gohan face, continuing to yell about how dangerous it was just to shove the peice of food in his mouth. He could've choked him. Killed him!
"Reno!" Reno's lecture was interrupted by a gasp that made him turn his head. He turned too fast, however, and received a head rush. At first, he was confused by the whole thing. Everyone was staring at him in shock.
He glanced at Gohan, earning another head rush. "What did you do to me?"
Gohan laughed at his response and pointed at him. "Look at yourself!" he laughed. "No, really! Take a look!"