Disclaimer: Chapter two.
Lazy me. Weee. My cat is much more important than fanfiction and schoolwork combined! Mwhahaahhahaahhahahaahaha!
Arufuredo looked even more tired after the discussion with his queen. They were to wait there until she arrives. When he asked her about pursuing Atsarute, she said that as long as the corpse was on this planet, it would be easy to subdue, and it was doubtful that it could do something as complex as hijack a ship and navigate it to Puroeriun territory.
He walked with a slightly trembling step back to his private lab, only for it to open before he reached it and have the Namekku-sei-jin that it contained walk out with his normal semblance.
"Piccolo-san!" Gohan stood from where he had been playing a card game with Videl. "Are you alright?"
Before he could answer, the doctor nearly blew up on the green man. "How did you get out of your straps?! I had you restricted for your own good as well as the others and—"
Piccolo rolled his eyes and pushed him out of the way. "Why are you guys here, anyway? This is an entirely different universe with more dangers than ours ever had."
"We came after you!" Chi-chi said, "We wouldn't have known that you went here unless these guys landed on Earth and told us that they were going to assimilate you into their army, and kill you if you refused. So, perhaps you should tell us why you're here."
"Wait! Medical questions first!" Arufuredo hissed, "Why are you even up?! You're ill and not even supposed to be conscious."
The Namekku-sei-jin crossed his arms and glared at the doctor. "Ever try to sleep with two old men bickering in your head? Your constant shining lights in my eyes and poking at the seams while I was on that table was the only thing that distracted me from their arguing."
"I'm… afraid that I don't understand. Do you know what's happening to you?"
"Hantoparu Ganab Siolofajih… 'The Mania of Tearing Seams'."
"…Is that a Namekku-sei-jin mental disorder? It sounds like it…"
"Something like that…" He turned to the Earthlings. "I came to this universe in search of the cure. I don't know where or what it is, but I always know which direction to go to find it." He looked towards one direction. "It's over there, now. I don't know how far, though. I'm completely unable to sense it in any way."
"So… you're drawn to it by compulsion, even though you're not sure how."
"That's about it."
Arufuredo turned in that direction as well. "From that way, I can sense the walking fiend… It's faint, but distinct."
Piccolo didn't seem to be paying attention anymore. He scowled as eyes were looking up into his brow, as if he was trying to glare at Kami-sama and Piccolo Daimaou. "Damn old men… At least Neil finally shut up, but I guess it's too much to ask father and Kami-sama to hold off long enough to let me clear my head…"
"What do you mean, Piccolo-san?"
.----------------------.
"The queen has arrived!" One soldier went through the lab in a fast stride, shouting out to everyone. The trip to the planet was successful (which means nothing if your cargo is merely a legion of warriors, but it's completely different when the passenger list includes the Empress) and the landing was without flaw. Komugiko-joou immediately summoned Dr. Arufuredo, the Humans and Saiya-jin, and the Namekku-sei-jin.
As they walked down the rather empty halls of the royal ship towards the chamber room, Piccolo lagged behind, lost in his own thoughts. Something urged him to look behind him, as if someone was following. He saw a blank space that stared back at him within his shadow.
The chamber room was not at all different from the throne room. The large tank once again took up the whole back of the room. Arufuredo took the front and everyone filled out behind him. Piccolo himself went outside of the tank's glow, studying this queen. Arufuredo explained to him everything about Komugiko's transfiguration and her orders to obtain him (and her manners towards how she speaks of him) and it didn't sit well with Piccolo and felt suspicious of her motives. This woman has never heard of him before, and she's showing such an interest in him. Getting arrested for the trouble he's caused made more sense, perhaps even scouted out for an army because of his strength and skill, but…
Komugiko searched through the group and looked straight at Piccolo before turning to Arufuredo and summoning him forward. "The Namekku-sei-jin is conscious?"
"Yes, my Empress." He bowed slightly. "He explained to me the cause and complications as soon as he came to his senses. He can normally maintain stable behavior and can have coherent thoughts. However, it is fatal and he refuses to disclose the cure, even though he claims that he is 'chasing it', as he says."
She smiled. "'Chasing', is it? Very well, however he should know that the thing he's chasing is a dangerous entity that will surely kill him does he not?"
"He did not discuss that, my Empress. I don't believe that he wishes to speak of it."
"Why not? After all, it's the same thing that I'm after and the same thing that you're after."
"…What do you mean?"
"Obviously he's been chasing Atsarute's corpse here. Could there be another reason for his position to continually relate with the corpse's?"
"He indicated that he might have been, but how did you come to this discovery…I-if you don't mind, my Empress?"
"I've been reading both of their positions. They're very important to me, you know. Atsarute must become part of my tank, and this man—" She halted speaking suddenly. "Doctor. Please come forward."
Arufuredo audibly swallowed and stepped hesitantly towards her. She kept beckoning for him to come closer until he was less than a meter away from him, and then began to speak softly to him alone.
Piccolo tried to hear it, but the hum of the machine that this creature that called herself a queen was hooked up to managed to mingle enough with the words that it was nearly impossible to discern their voices from the mechanical burr and churning bubbles. The only phrase (incomplete may it be) that he could identify from the queen was, "Do you have… Katatsu's lineage?" In response to this, Arufuredo pulled out a small computer. After a while of more mutterings, now oddly coming only from the queen, he heard her say, "And speak nothing of it to him."
She waved him back, however the doctor's eyes were still glued upon the computer, and it took a few seconds before he realized that he was dismissed. As he returned to the group, he stopped suddenly when a slight blip came from his computer. He held it up before him and spoke into it. "This had better be important, Lieutenant."
"I'm sorry, doctor," said a voice from the device said, "but we just found a hole ripped in the eastern wall. Security has been breeched."
"What?" Arufuredo hesitated, uncertain of what to do next.
Komugiko immediately scanned the front walls, her eyes falling straight on Piccolo, staring as if in a kind of alarm. The time of that piercing yellow's glaring was halted abruptly when the queen shot up and those tentacle-like tubes shot out from the throne towards him. He dodged, and so did something else, leaping from the shadows beside him and revealing its form, now dressed in black wraps, into the center of the room. It hunched over and extended its hands and fingers like claws, faced directly towards Komugiko.
"Capture it at once!" Komugiko shouted, "That's without a doubt Atsarute!"
The guards, who had until then been still, advanced, intending to stun the creature with seizure weapons. It knocked them both out with a roundhouse and pounced forward towards the queen. Komugiko managed to smack it away with one of the tubes, but it recovered quickly and ran towards her again. This time, it dodged and jumped the tubes to reach her, and gave a closed chop to her head. She fell to her side, and the walking fiend knelt down, looking at the several tubes connected to her back and shoulders. Then, with a clawing, grasping motion, ripped into one of them.
Water sprayed out and gushed onto the floor, quickly forming a puddle around the queen as she began gasping with heavy takes of breath, giving the air of a fish out of water. The creature kicked her over to see her front more clearly and seemed to have been examining something. No one dared approach, and the queen could not do anything, but even though they were sure that Atsarute would rip out her throat, the dead general simply turned around and jetted out the door.
.----------------------.
"I can't believe you let him get away," Vegita growled, "We could have gotten out of this whole fucking mess and be on our way home if it wasn't for your incompetence!"
"Are you talking about General Atsarute?" Arufuredo removed his glasses and cleaned them with his shirt.
"Of course I'm talking about him! Who the Hell do you think I'm talking about? Santa Claus?"
He put the glasses back on. "I fail to see what your Earth mythological figures have to do with our situation."
"For a top scientist you're really fucking dense."
Bulma slapped Vegita lightly on the shoulder and shot him a mean look. "Don't you think that he's going through enough already? How was Arufuredo to know that Atsarute would be able to hijack a small ship in his condition?"
Piccolo held his forehead, trying to ignore the arguments from both the outside and the inside. Gohan, naturally concerned, approached him. "Piccolo-san? Are you alright?"
"No. The cure managed to escape, everyone's fighting in my head, you guys are giving me a headache with your verbal spasms, and to top it off, even if the cure didn't escape, I wouldn't know what to do with it since I can't see it."
"What do you mean you can't see it? Is something wrong with your eyes, Piccolo-san? Did the disorder affect your eyesight, too?"
"No, but I can't see it, or hear it, or sense its ki… and I'm willing to bet that I can't feel it, smell it, or taste it either."
"Really? That's weird… Why do you suppose that is?"
"The Fates are cruel and want to give me as many hindrances as possible."
"You should tell Arufuredo about it. He might know what's going on."
A chuckle came from the back of Piccolo's mind. That stuffy, alien personality hasn't a single clue.
Piccolo blinked and spoke aloud, "You stopped fighting?"
For the time being, his father said, That creature is useless to you now, anyway. It's going back to one of its more familiar worlds to recuperate, and expects you and the Earthlings to follow.
"It does?" Piccolo was now preoccupied with the dialogue, confusing Gohan and leaving him out of the information. "How does it know?"
It doesn't, really, but it noticed that you follow it, even though it can't sense you anymore than you can sense it. It figures that you will continue to follow. My only guess as to how it knows that you've been following is that you're its cure as it is your cure. Consider yourself lucky that it can't see you; it would surely rip your throat out.
The scientists poured out of the room where they were working on their queen and her equipment. They had to soak up and redeposit every molecule of water that got out (with the exception to whatever got onto Atsarute). The queen's life was in no danger now, but she would be a little weak while recovering her moisture. Arufuredo went to Piccolo immediately to give him this news, but Piccolo ignored it; he wanted nothing to do with such a questionable woman.
Seeing Piccolo's rejection of her, Chi-chi began to ponder something, and asked one of the soldiers nearby for a picture of Komugiko-joou before she changed. He abided and soon passed her one, and she immediately excused herself with the mysterious briefcase that she'd been carrying into her room, shutting the door in the ever-curious Goku's face.
She opened the case and stared at the contents for a second. The clothes, newspaper clippings, and pictures didn't really deteriorate since she last saw them many years ago. She pulled out a certain photograph of a group of co-workers, mostly wearing similar uniforms. The picture of Komugiko-joou was placed right beside the image of a woman in a bartender's outfit, crossing her arms and holding a rather cold expression on her face. Both of these women looked proud and feminine, but certainly not weak. The piercing coldness of the bartender didn't match the youthful warrioress as much as the queen's yellow eyes now that stare from deep caves.
Chi-chi sighed. "I only brought this to jar his memory incase he really did lose it, but it looks like it might do a lot more…"
It was a while, wasn't it? …Oh shit it's already getting light.
HISS! –hides in cave-