Disclaimer: Chapter 2.

-Mischievous chuckle-. The plan is working.

There was a scientist working on the "view screen" (pretty much a Pasuko-jin television, since that was all it was ever used for) since Chi-chi, of all people, accidentally broke it while trying to throw something at her husband. Goku dodged, and there was a projectile incident, so to speak. At this moment, the hookups were getting fixed. Images flashed on and off between blank screens and static. The person working on it seemed to have been going through a lot of trouble.

Atsarute was trying to communicate more often, but now, it would write two different messages: one's meant to be read aloud by Arufuredo was in basic script, and there was another in Namekkian, asking for the "senseless catalyst". It knew that Piccolo was there, and that he was a Namekku-sei-jin, but it still couldn't sense him at all.

The messages were usually along the lines of: "Who will kill whom first? Which is destined to die? You're a catalyst as well, and perhaps the most important. I might need to rip out your throat." These were drawn on the papers given to it to communicate.

He refused to offer any answers to it. Instead, he was trying to figure out how it could possibly be a cure. The thought of the queen taking all of its moisture out and giving it to him came from when Gohan told him about their first meeting with her in detail. If she was Jin and was necessary in this whole thing, then that scenario was the only possibility that he could deduce.

"Well, Piccolo," Arufuredo said, sitting down on the long couch before the observation cell and looking at the Namek, "How am I going to convince you to let me take a look at your eyes or that cerebrum? I'm curious as to why you can't see General Atsarute over there."

"I told you before, it has nothing to do with my physical body."

"You didn't quite explain how that conclusion came about, though."

"The others that occupy this body can sense it just fine."

"'Others'? Oh, right. That disorder you have with the Yuugou(a/n)… that's such a strange case. It took me a long while to find any texts on it…"

"Let's leave it at that. I don't feel like discussing it."

"Very well. Is there anything you would like to discuss? Perhaps about the queen?"

There was a long pause. "How did you know?"

"You were looking at that picture of her before she gained the empire for quite some while. I'm curious as to if it's due to your suspicions of her or whether there's another factor involved."

Piccolo growled slightly. "The reasons aren't important, but I would like to know what it was she was telling you when she called you before her. I don't believe that you would mind, being that you're a traitor and such…"

Arufuredo looked stunned for a minute, then it seemed to hit him. "Oh yeah! I sort of… zoned out while she was talking. I can't really remember a smite of it."

"You're kidding me."

"Heh… well, I stopped sort of listening after she told me to get out a diagram of Katatsu's lineage, so I brought it up on my computer and… well…"

"Well, what?"

"I came upon a picture of one of the princesses in the family and sort of stopped…" He smiled sheepishly. "I didn't hear a word until she finally yelled at me to stand down and snapped me out of it."

"…So you were just ogling an image of some girl that whole time?"

"Toniko-hime is a very beautiful and—" he coughed, "—influential woman. She's near the head of the line in her family and one of Katatsu's first grandchildren."

Piccolo rolled his eyes. "That's nice, as well as absolutely useless to me. I was hoping that you might be able to give me some insight on her, like maybe she told you something that could be of use to me."

"What were you expecting?"

"Never mind… it's not important."

Something buzzed onto the screen again and started forming a clear feed. The scientist working on it climbed out from under it and closed the bulkhead. "That should do it… What kind of image are we getting?" He looked up at it. "What the Hell…? This something of yours, Arufuredo?"

Arufuredo sat up and looked over. "Oh, that's a recording of one of the major fighting tournaments on Earth. That's how I found out about these guys in the first place."

The man watched it for a little while. "They don't look all that strong in here."

"That particular tournament is rather old. You should see how much these guys improve as time progresses through these recordings."

Piccolo glanced over at it. "It's the 23rd Tenkaichi Boudokai. Would you mind turning it off?"

"I guess," the scientist said, but when he reached to pull up another video, Atsarute growled threateningly from its pen.

"Ehhh… Do you wish to watch this, Atsarute-sama?" Arufuredo sweat-dropped, not expecting the dead general to care about whatever could be on the tube.

It nodded then lay down to watch it, its eyes following any fighter that was there.

Piccolo looked over at the blank space behind him. "Why does he want to watch people that are probably weaker than him fight?"

"To study technique? Even if you were weaker then, it might not make a difference to Atsarute at this point. It might bring a sense of identity to it… Hey, is that you in that fight? You're fighting that midget Kuririn…"

"Yeah… that's me…"

"If you don't mind me saying, you look bloody anorexic in this video."

"…Gee, how nice of you to say so…Fuck off, already…"

.-.

Atsarute's soldiers had gathered around the tree with the carved message in it. The superior sniffed at it and analyzed it a while before, "There's no doubt about it. This was written by Atsarute-sama.

The others looked at each other uncertainly. One finally spoke up, "Why do you think Atsarute-sama is telling us to hold off like this? There's definitely something wrong. Why aren't we allowed to help?"

The superior sighed. "I believe it's the very reason that something is wrong. Atsarute-sama is a leader of strength and self-reliance." He turned from the tree to the group. "The best we can do is to remain calm and do as we are ordered for now. We'll not bother the people mentioned in this message and await further instruction."

Everyone was obviously uncomfortable with this decision. No matter what, they couldn't get around the idea of having to be idle while their leader went through difficulties. "But, Jakkaru …we can't just stand by like this. We have to do something!"

Jakkaru groaned. "The most that we can do is continue patrol of this planet to make sure that no more enemies come here. They are to be captured and placed in detention, for now. We won't kill them unless we get the word."

.-.

Suddenly, Atsarute jumped back, acting somewhat startled, and began growling, staring directly in Piccolo's direction.

Arufuredo looked over to it. "Is something upsetting you, Atsarute-sama?"

It only snarled more at Piccolo, who was leaning on the "glass" of the observation cell, and worked with the wrappings on its right hand.

Piccolo didn't seem to care about what the thing that he couldn't see was doing, looking off to the side, not particularly at anything.

Then he heard a loud bang and scratching sound from behind his neck. He jumped and whirled around to see deep claw marks in the glass, but still not the thing that caused it. There was some discarded black material on the floor.

"Damn!" Arufuredo exclaimed, "It's a good thing that it's not loose!"

"What's going on?" Piccolo demanded.

"I think… I think it can sense you now…Can you sense it?"

He shook his head. "Not at all… fuck. And it tried to attack me?"

"Yeah… wait a second…" He approached the cell slowly. "It took off the wrappings around its hand… probably so that its claws could get to you better…"

The scientist that was previously working on the view screen decided that now would be a good time to sprint to the lab, almost knocking into Chi-chi. "What was with him?" She said, glancing back in the running man's wake before setting her eyes upon the threatening fiend. "What happened?"

Piccolo moved back towards the couch, unsure of what to do. "I don't know. This thing was apparently watching the view screen until it decided to attack me."

"Yeah…" Arufuredo said, watching the fiend's eyes shift along with the Namek's movements, "It can see you now; there's no doubt about it… Great, now I won't be able to open the door to gather samples and feed it."

Chi-chi switched her eyes from the fiend to Arufuredo. "What do you mean?"

"Well, now that it can see Piccolo, and obviously wants to kill Piccolo, I can't possibly get in without risking its escape…"

"I mean feeding it. It eats?"

"Oh. Yes, yes it does… I normally put its food in while everyone's asleep anyway as it prefers complete privacy when it eats… There hasn't been a record of walking fiends eating, but there are few credible accounts, so its probably never been observed or cataloged."

She knelt down to get a better look at the unwrapped hand. "I don't think it was eating well before. It looks a bit thin."

Bulma came up right behind her, and stepped back a bit when she saw Atsarute in its threatening, animal-like stance. "What's with him? He looks pissed. Did Vegita try taunting it again?"

"No, but speaking of your husband," Arufuredo coughed with a tight brow, "Is he finally over himself and coming out of your room, or is he still moping?"

"That man," she sighed, "I haven't a clue what to do with him. He'll only sit there and watch movies on our television. He won't get out to train with the others. He scarcely leaves for food!"

"Maybe he's sick…" Chi-chi said.

"Or maybe he's just a little bitch…" Arufuredo grumbled under his breath, then he turned to his lab and repealed from the others. "I've got work to do, so I can't train today, either. I'm trying to isolate something and it's really hard to define…"

The women groaned in unison. "So easy for him to say, the boys happen to be getting homesick," said Chi-chi, "I thought they would lighten up with a bigger training session, that usually snaps Goku out of it at least."

"Hmm…" Bulma tapped her chin in thought for a moment. "I noticed that about practically everyone else, but I haven't seen it in Gohan."

"Of course not. He's so infatuated with Videl that he doesn't seem to care about anything else." She giggled. "He's growing up."

Piccolo had proceeded to walk off at this point, knowing that these gossips were only a few sentences away from asking him how he felt on this issue. Father, you'd best tell me how to get the bloody cure soon.

(a/n)Yuugou – the word for Namekku-sei-jin merging/fusing. I never used it before because, frankly, I didn't know it.
I wanted to get this out on Valentine's Day along with a chapter for one of my other fics, but things never work out that way. Now, I must work on my paper on the Klingon language for class. Seriously.