Chapter Five: Not With a Bang, But a Whimper

Gohan woke up every day thinking that it was just a horrible, horrible nightmare, and that this would be the morning when the facts would be different. When the cosmos would rearrange themselves and right the natural order of things. A world with his father dead, by his hand, just seemed like a cruel practical joke. He half-expected his father to jump out of concealment with his smile bright as always, and reassure Gohan that he'd just been kidding, that he hadn't really gone anywhere and never would.

Of course, Gohan was continually disappointed. This wasn't a dream, and it wasn't a joke. It was reality. It was his life now. A tragedy of his own doing, penned by his own hand. Honestly, he didn't know how to deal with it. Every misfortune he'd ever encountered had always come about as the result of some outside force. That had made it easier to keep his chin up. He'd always been very adept at struggling through and overcoming adversary, but not when the enemy was himself. Like the internal virus that had finally ironically been the one to claim his father's life, Gohan felt like a blight, a sickness on the Son family.

He blearily checked the calendar hanging on his wall. It had been nearly two weeks since that night. Two weeks…not nearly long enough. The time seemed to crawl by. He didn't know how he was going to stay sane for four months. And Krillin was still there. He scratched his head, a bit puzzled. He hadn't given much thought to the human warrior's presence, but it was slowly occurring to him to question it. After all, Krillin had a wife and daughter of his own to attend to…

But then again, thought Gohan guiltily, so do I. Well, he hadn't married Videl, but…

He sighed and pulled on his clothes. It was past noon, and while his mopey mood would have allowed him to stay in bed all day, his growling stomach wouldn't let him go through with that plan. Besides, he was doing a poor job of keeping the charade up for Goten's sake; innocent though his brother may have been, he wasn't stupid. By now, he probably knew something was up. Hopefully, Trunks had been keeping him occupied.

Gohan finished dressing and raked a comb haphazardly through his bedhead. After a few attempts to tame the wild mass, he resigned himself to a bad hair day. His appearance wasn't holding much interest for him, anyway.

He trudged downstairs and checked the kitchen to see if his mother had saved him a plate from breakfast or lunch. He wasn't surprised to see that she hadn't. She hadn't done anything like that, or even paid him much mind, since that night, and he couldn't blame her. He could take this as an indication that she was still mad at him, because she wouldn't talk to him. Often, he thought he would prefer for her just to let loose and scream at him, get it all out of her system so they could move on. Goku's absence was hard on all of them, but it wasn't as if he would be gone forever. It was little consolation for the present, but Gohan tried to keep it firmly in mind. It was all he could hold onto.

"Gohan! You're finally out of your room!"

Gohan turned his head to see Goten waving from the living room, surrounded by the kids who called themselves the 'Partial Club'—the half-saiyans Trunks, Bulla, and Valese, the half-android Marron, and the fourth-saiyan Pan. His eyes lingered on the latter. He felt his heart swell with both pain and pleasure, as it always did every time he looked at her.

Oblivious, Pan looked over at him and smiled. "Hey, Dad, what's up? Feels like I haven't seen you in forever!"

"Maybe he's too busy playing superhero," Bulla said with a smirk.

Pan glared at the bratty blue-haired half-pint. Bulla just grinned in the face of Pan's displeasure and stuck her tongue out.

"I'm sorry," Gohan said quietly. "I've just had a lot on my mind lately."

Pan shrugged. "Mom says you ought to visit more often."

Gohan didn't reply. He didn't know how he felt about Videl. At the time they had conceived Pan, Gohan had been emotionally vulnerable, scarred and wracked with guilt and pain after his father's sacrifice in the Cell Games—ironically, very much like the state of mind he was in now. He had fled to Videl because he was thirsty for some connection and a way to ease the pain. And she—for her part, she had been awed by his strength, by his anger and agitation and aggression. She'd romanticized the idea that he'd saved the world, and, having always been in the spotlight and kept on a strict rein by her father, she'd wanted to do something a little naughty, rebellious…scandalous. In essence, the two had used each other. They'd played on each other's little insecurities in a preteen fling.

And Pan had resulted. How could they have known that their one act of indiscretion would have such a major consequence? But it had. Gohan and Videl were both still young, in school, and financially dependent. They couldn't have moved out to raise the child alone, and they weren't even sure they really wanted to. Gohan still lived at home in Mount Paozu, and Videl still lived with her father—and simply put, Pan lived in the Satan household because they were rich and better equipped to host a child than the nearly penniless Sons.

Not the most romantic of backgrounds. It never really seemed to bother Pan, though. That was a major relief to Gohan.

After making himself a sandwich in the kitchen, Gohan sat down on the couch in the living room, near where the Partial Club was seated in a kind of lopsided circle on the floor.

Marron was wistfully running her fingers through Bulla's hair. "I wish I could grow it like that, Bulla."

Bulla smirked, her already-large ego inflating. "Must be my genes. I am the Princess of All Saiyans, after all."

"You should let me braid it!" Marron pouted and made her eyes large. "Please?"

"No way!" Bulla was unmoved by the puppy dog routine. "You're a fashion disaster, Miss Pigtails-and-Pink." She paid no mind to Marron's self-conscious twiddling of the pink bow at the end of one of her pigtails and continued, "Considering how you look every day, you'd just make me a mess!"

Valese's tail twitched. "You don't have to be so rude."

"I don't recall asking for your input, Sweetness," Bulla said idly as she examined her glittering aquamarine nails.

"You painted your nails to match your hair and eyes?" Marron asked. "At that rate, you're gonna just start to blend together into a mass of blue! If you wore all blue too, and painted your skin, I bet a giant bird could mistake you for a blueberry and swoop down and try to eat you!"

Pan shook her head. "Marron, why are you so weird?"

Bulla, on the other hand, leapt to her feet in outrage. "Are you calling me fat?" she screeched.

"I think you'd look more like a blueberry muffin," Goten put in, trying to be helpful.

Valese giggled as Bulla steamed. "The bird who tried to eat her would probably choke, though. On account of her being too sour."

"Yeah, he'd expect sweetness," Goten agreed with a wise nod of his head. "I like sour stuff but when I'm expecting to taste something sweet and it turns out to be sour, that makes it taste awful. There was this one time I picked up a cookie thinking it was chocolate chip, but it turned out to be oatmeal raisin. Even though I like oatmeal raisin, it was very disappointing."

Trunks grinned at his friend. "Once, when my family was at this fancy restaurant, my dad told me that the black oval thingies in the salad were grapes. I believed him and ate an olive." Trunks made a face at the memory, and Bulla was effectively cheered up and started to laugh. "He and Bulla thought it was hilarious."

"Maybe because you were stupid enough to believe that there were randomly sprinkled grapes in salad!" Bulla hooted.

Trunks's face went red. "Well, I'd heard of 'fruit salad,' and, you know…"

At this point, everyone but Goten burst into laughter at the expense of Trunks. Trunks crossed his arms, not having anticipated this turn of events. Desperate to turn the spotlight away from him, he pointed out, "Goten's way more gullible than that! I could tell him the moon was made of green cheese and he'd believe me!"

Goten tilted his head. "What's 'gullible' mean, Trunks? And nuh uh—the moon isn't green!"

Trunks rolled his eyes. "Dummy. Then the moon's made of white cheese."

Goten's eyes got wide. "Really? It is?" Then he frowned as he thought about this, a crease forming between his eyebrows.

"Case in point," Trunks said with a grin to the rest of them, and Gohan controlled his urge to speak up in his brother's defense. He finished the last tasteless bites of his sandwich and watched silently. It always bothered him how Trunks treated his brother and purported 'best friend' like an idiot, but at the moment, he was too grateful to Trunks for keeping up the façade to find it in himself to reprimand the boy.

"But Trunks!" Goten said, tugging on his friend's sleeve with an uncharacteristic look of intense concentration on his face.

Trunks turned to him. "Yeah?"

"My dad's been out in space, near the moon, right? If it's made of cheese, then why hasn't my dad eaten it?"

A beat of silence. Goten's question was so earnest that even Gohan couldn't resist smiling.

Then Trunks answered, "I don't know, Goten; maybe he doesn't know what it's made of. Maybe he thinks it's, like, made of rock or something ridiculous like that."

Goten nodded, satisfied. He trusted Trunks implicitly, so if Trunks had said it, it must be the truth. That was the way Goten's mind worked when it came to everyone he loved. Precisely why the conceal of Goku's death was so easy. Gohan frowned. Was willfully taking advantage of his brother's trust really an all right thing to do? Deep down, Gohan knew the answer, but he didn't want to admit it, not even to himself.

"You know what I want to know?" Pan mused, looking from Trunks to Bulla. "What it's like to have another Trunks living in your house with you."

"How do your parents call you?" Valese asked Trunks, grinning. "Trunks One and Trunks Two?"

Trunks shrugged, not entirely comfortable discussing the stranger with his face. "Dad calls him 'Future Boy.' Me, just 'Boy.' Mom mostly calls him 'Time Traveler.'"

"He's really cool!" Bulla gushed. "Nothing like the brother I know now."—Trunks frowned.—"He must've been through a lot tougher stuff, because he's really strong. You guys should all be super jealous. I mean, he's even got a sword!"

"Yeah, that he used to shish-kabob my dad with!" Pan interjected, her voice rising.

Gohan judged that this would be a wise time to speak up. "No worries, Pan, I'm fine now."

Pan turned towards him, the fire in her eyes defeated. The anger drained from her as quickly as it had come, to be replaced with weary sadness. Leftover tears from the stress of that night came to the corners of her eyes. "What would I have done without a dad?"

Good question. Gohan couldn't speak. Something was stuck in his throat.

Fortunately, Marron emerged as his savior. "Probably about the same thing I'm doing now," she said airily. "Dad hasn't been home in a week, going on two."

"That's different!" Pan snapped. "He's alive and safe. You know where he is."

"Doesn't change the fact that I don't have a dad." Marron shrugged.

Gohan was surprised to hear that Marron felt that way about Krillin's absence. Just because he wasn't at the house right now, Marron concluded that she practically had no father? He wondered if Krillin even considered the strain he was putting on his own household. He narrowed his eyes as he pursued this path of thought. And what was Krillin so afraid of, anyway, that he would forsake Eighteen and Marron to look after the Son house? What did Krillin think would happen to them in Goku's absence? It was possible he was keeping a look out, not for external enemies, but the dangers of the internal workings of the Son family, the vague threats Future Trunks had warned about. In fact, it was very likely that Krillin was not trying to protect the Sons, but protect everyone else from the Sons. Gohan didn't know why that realization should hurt so much. It was a reasonable action for Krillin to take, but it still felt rather like a slap in the face.

Aloud, he said, to comfort Marron, "You've still got a dad. He's just got important business to attend to right now, and it involves living away from you for a brief time. But in the end, it's just to keep you safe. He loves you, more than anything. You know that, right?"

And besides, Goku had been missing for much of Gohan's childhood. Not through any fault of his own, but all those mornings waking up with his father gone more often than not had taught Gohan quickly to realize that he always had a loving, caring father, even when he couldn't see or touch him. Even when he was off battling monsters and demons, or recuperating from a tough fight, or even, well, dead. After all, everything Goku had ever done, even if it wasn't clear how at the time, had been out of love for Gohan. Of course, it wasn't always easy to see it that way. All the time without him had been tough and Gohan would be lying if he said he didn't feel even a tiny bit of resentment. But he tried to keep perspective, especially now, for Marron's sake.

Marron gave a slow nod and then, looking straight at him with clear eyes, she said, "I could say the same thing about your dad."

Gohan felt like he'd been doused with ice-cold water. Marron was a flighty, airheaded kid, and a lot of the things she said either made no sense or a peculiar kind of sense, but once in a while, she'd do this. She'd say something remarkably sane and profound, something that he needed to hear, something he could never ask for, but she just somehow knew. It would always strike him like lightning to a leafless tree.

Come to think of it, how much did Marron even know about the situation with his dad?

"Do you know where my dad is?" Gohan carefully asked, making sure to place each word in a non-emphatic, nonchalant tone. It was somehow harder to talk about, harder to think about, almost impossible to even conceive, when it came to discussing the hard facts with someone else. Someone who knew the shameful thing he had done. A child, no less. Breathe, Gohan. Don't forget to breathe.

Marron faltered. "I…I have an idea," she said, and Gohan blessed her for not further articulating in front of Goten. She could be remarkably perceptive.

So she hadn't been told. She'd pieced it together, probably from her father's sudden interest in staying in the Son house. Gohan inclined his head toward her, hoping to signal that she'd guessed correctly.

Goten looked from Marron to Gohan, confused. "I don't!" he blurted out. "I have no idea where Dad's gone. I usually see him at least three times a day!"

Gohan couldn't help but smirk. Mealtimes.

"But now I don't see him at all," Goten continued, a petulant tone creeping into his voice. "Have you seen him, Gohan? Do you know where he is?"

Trunks's cool blue eyes shifted to Gohan, but he didn't speak and his expression was unreadable. Gohan remembered Trunks bringing this problem up at the outset: What was he going to tell Goten? But Trunks wasn't giving anything away, still allowing the ball to remain firmly in Gohan's court. Whatever Gohan said now, Trunks would follow suit. At least, Gohan hoped he would.

Marron, meanwhile, looked very confused. Gohan could practically see the gears in her mind working furiously overtime. She was pretty certain now that Goku had been dead for a while, but…Goten didn't know? Gohan bit his lip, knowing Marron was expecting him to come clean with the truth, expecting to have to comfort Goten, and had Goku died in any other manner, that was probably what would have happened. But Gohan had done it. He couldn't tell Goten the truth; he just couldn't.

He looked away from the judging eyes, the two pairs of blue eyes boring into him and the trusting pair of charcoal eyes that matched his, the eyes that looked so much like his father's. Gohan stared at the ground as he answered Goten at last. "He's on vacation."

Marron couldn't help an exclamation of surprise, but she mercifully said nothing. Trunks, however, couldn't help but remark, "Interesting," in an incredulous tone that he semi-successfully tempered to sound more modulated and calm.

"That makes no sense," Valese commented mildly. She didn't seem to understand the subtext; she was just perhaps a little too honest for her own good. "Goku doesn't work. And don't you usually vacation at home? Or with your family someplace?"

Goten rubbed his chin, considering. Even he had to discard that excuse like the cardboard cutout it was. "Vacation from what?"

Bulla put her hands on her hips and grinned. "Maybe he needed a vacation from you," she told Goten. "You and your stream of questions, and your annoying voice, and your copycat hair!"

Goten gasped and his eyes widened as he considered the possibility. "He left…to get away from me?"

"No, no!" Gohan wanted to nip that thought process in the bud. He was rather irritated at Bulla for sowing those seeds. That sort of insecurity had led to Gohan's long-running anger and abandonment issues, none of which he wanted to see repeated in his little brother. "You know how he's been sick, right?"

Goten nodded, his face still a little pale. "His heart."

"That's right." Gohan swallowed and forced a smile. He had to seem his normal, optimistic self. "He said he felt like he would get better quicker if he was in different weather for a while. And he felt like he was worrying us and being a burden, so he'd rather return when he's well again."

Goten mulled it over for a long while as Gohan envisioned gnawing his own nails to the quick and yanking out clumps of his hair, but forced himself to remain still. Finally, Goten nodded. "I guess that makes sense. So he is taking a vacation from his family…but not 'cause he's sick of us."

"No, he's just plain sick," said Bulla, most unhelpfully. Gohan blamed his mounting stress on the overwhelming urge he had to strangle the child. He felt sick as soon as the thought came to mind, though, even as a fleeting joke. He didn't need to exhibit any more murderous violence towards his friends and allies.

"But he's gonna get better!" Goten said, looking hopefully up at Gohan. "Right?"

Gohan nodded. "Right." He felt sicker.

Marron and Trunks exchanged a look, and then both regarded Goten with a mixture of sympathy and protectiveness. Goten didn't notice, but Gohan did.

"I was worried about that," Goten confessed. "'Cause Dad really didn't want to take his medicine. I thought maybe it was 'cause it tasted bad, and I put it in a needle and stuck it into him, but he wished it out! I still don't get why he did that…"

"Wished it out, huh?" Marron said quietly. She still didn't know the whole story, but there it was. Another piece of the puzzle. "So we won't be able to use the Dragon Balls for a while."

"Yeah! That's what I said!" Goten agreed, the subtlety lost on him. "I don't get why he wasted the Dragon Balls just to make it so he never got stuck with a needle. I guess he thinks, 'cause no one's really attacked us lately, that we can start using the Dragon Balls on little things."

Valese cleared her throat, stretching out on the floor. "That's a bad idea," she warned. "My mom taught me a thing or two about Dragon Balls when she was here. Dependency on the Dragon Balls for small problems quickly turns into abuse, which turns into overuse. Overheated Dragon Balls get unstable, especially if they're used repeatedly on the same planet. There's a reason magic isn't used for everything, guys. It's unnatural. Over time, it creates a lot of negative energy."

She looked around, seeming to notice everyone's eyes fixed on her for the first time. Blushing at the attention, she looked down at her hands. "I'd just be more careful, is all."

Pan leaned forward, her orange bandanna slipping onto her forehead. "What happens," she asked, in hushed tones, "when the Dragon Balls get too unstable?"

Valese looked uncomfortable. "Well, in some cases, the planets have been known to, um, explode."

Everyone's loud exclamation of surprise was at the highest point of intensity.

"Explode?" squeaked Marron, looking around nervously as if she expected detonation any moment.

"You say it so casually," Trunks said, looking at Valese in disbelief.

"You wait until now to give us news like that? How long have you been sitting on that information?" Bulla demanded.

Valese held up her hands, signaling for order. "Sheesh, guys, don't panic. It takes years and years for that to happen. And the yearly period before potential use really helps slow the process down. I don't imagine the Earth's in danger of blowing in any of our lifetimes, but eventually, if the Dragon Balls kept getting used regularly enough…Ka-blam!" She clapped her hands together and smiled, trying to relieve some of the tension. "That's why it's better not to depend on wishes to solve all your problems. Sometimes you gotta work instead. That's the way it's supposed to be."

So the exploding planet—just some big cosmic karma, a punishment for people too lazy to fix their problems without magical intervention? Gohan thought about it. It hardly seemed like a fair trade, but it made a sort of sense. The Dragon Balls were a little too good to be true. Gohan was quickly learning that there was always a drawback in life. Always.

It really wasn't fair, though. Having wishes granted was such a sweet deal. People had dreamed of genies, and magic lamps, and falling stars for as long as dreamers had existed. To give people some of their most primitive, deeply-held desires and then add a catch like that—it was almost too cruel. How could the dragons who had created the Dragon Balls for hapless humans to find have not expected the people who unlocked their secrets to take full advantage? And Gohan couldn't rightly say he was sorry for using wishes. They had usually been used to bring someone he loved back from the grave. At one point, they had brought him back. Still, was he now to believe that all of that had contributed to the eventual dooming and deterioration of the whole planet? Was it worth it?

"I guess we probably shouldn't tell the generation after you about the Dragon Balls at all," Gohan said thoughtfully, looking over the children. "Let them be a secret that dies with us."

"And not tell our kids about our awesome Dragon Ball-related adventures?" Pan yelped, offended. "Are you crazy? They'll think we're so cool!"

"We could just tell them not to use them," Trunks suggested hopefully.

"You think they'd listen? Would you?" Gohan pointed out.

Trunks shrugged. "You've got a point there, Nerd Boy."

"I don't know that keeping them in ignorance would help," Valese said quietly. "There's a chance they'd find out about them, or that someone would, and start using them without any knowledge of the consequences of overuse. I think it's probably better to pass down the knowledge of the Dragon Balls—and the danger involved. That way there'll always be someone monitoring the use."

Gohan couldn't fault the child's reasoning. There was something she wasn't saying, though. He could sense it, in the way she wouldn't look anyone in the eye, in the way she fidgeted. Valese had a secret. Gohan thought about pressing, but ultimately, decided against it. He had enough secrets of his own. He'd learned to respect the secrets of others.

Besides, if it was truly important, if it would affect the rest of them, Valese would tell. Gohan was as sure of that as he was sure that she was hiding something. She'd tell when it was necessary, and not a moment sooner.

The woman ran up to him, her dark cloak doing a poor job of concealing the bright blue hair jutting out. "I have it. The last one," she told him breathlessly, hurrying to bring the object from the folds of her robe.

"I don't need to see it. You've done well."

She blushed. "You trust me, then?"

"Oh, my sweet dear Bulla." He grinned, though it wasn't a happy expression. Somehow he looked like he might strike her, and then in all sincerity and tenderness, gently kiss the bruise away. "You're the only one I can still trust."

She fell into step beside him as they made their way down a familiar maze of passageways, to the warehouse that had become his hideout. The other six, powerful orange orbs were there, and as they neared, Bulla felt the final matching sphere as it warmed up and pulsed in her hand like a living thing. She smiled, stealing a glance at the man beside her. He stared ahead, black eyes above an even blacker scowl. Even with the harsh expression, he had grown to look so much like his father, a cutting image. She felt a physical ache but ignored it for the sake of her sanity.

In an ironic role reversal, Bulla felt shy now, afraid of how the figure beside her would react to even a slightly incendiary comment. Still, she had never been one to mince words. "It's been a while since Trunks disappeared. That doesn't…have anything to do with your decision, does it?"

"Wherever Trunks is, this'll be sure to reach him." He gave her that odd smile again. She felt sick.

When they approached the warehouse door, he reached out and pushed it up. There they were, all six beauties lined up in a row.

"Ladies first," he murmured, gesturing her inside. A part of her was disturbed that he made it a point to have her step into the warehouse first, but she nonetheless did as she was bid. He walked in after her, shutting the door with a slam.

Bulla jumped and spun around. They were in pitch darkness. "What are you doing?" she asked, clutching onto the Dragon Ball in her hand unconsciously. She could use it for leverage, if she had to. Her heart sank even as the thought crossed her mind. He could take it from her by force without a problem, if he wanted to.

He didn't answer her and in the eerie silence, she heard footsteps. Slow, measured, unhurried. Inversely proportional to the rate of her heartbeat. This had been a horrible idea. Step, step. Closer and closer. Like the swagger of a lion as it came upon a handicapped, weak gazelle. The gait of a smug predator, and she was the helpless, terrified prey. Role reversals. It served her right. Why had she trusted him? Why? Of course, she knew his sanity was long gone. He was nothing like the boy she once knew, but she had wanted so badly to believe that he was still there, and that, unbelievably, he wanted her on his side. He wanted her. She'd betrayed her own brother for a fantasy, lived in denial even after he'd mutilated her father. Another step. Bulla just wanted to collapse to the floor in sobs, but even now her pride would not allow it.

A final step. And then…a click. Bulla's eyes were flooded with light. For a wild moment, Bulla thought that the click had been the cocking of a gun, that he'd shot her and the light was the beginning of the afterlife. But she blinked, disoriented, to see his finger still on the light switch. He was looking at her in dim amusement. She had never felt more humiliated.

She said nothing as he walked over to her, with that same loping grace. A power play. She'd played right into his hands.

"You didn't scream," he noted. "Though you whimpered once or twice."

Had she? She didn't even recall.

"You're sweating like a pig," he continued. His voice revealed none of what he was feeling—contempt, disgust, anger…pity? No, not pity. Pity was a long-lost concept to those hard, black eyes. "Although your bladder didn't release. I guess you held on to your dignity somewhat, eh?"

Bulla said nothing. She was shaking.

He slipped behind her, fluid as water, and his hands gently brushed her collarbone, stroking her throat. Dancing halfway between a threat and a caress. "You said you trusted me," he breathed. His lips were so close to her ear, his breath ruffled her hair. She swallowed, wanting to be repulsed but unable to be. She still remembered that sweet little boy. "Are you a liar?" he continued, his voice honey sweet and poisonous as a wasp sting. "Are you a liar like your brother?" Without giving her a chance to answer—she couldn't have, anyway—he abruptly dropped his hand to her wrist and applied pressure in just the right way that she was forced to drop the Dragon Ball she held. It fell to the ground and rolled, as if magnetically attracted, to its kin.

He remained behind her, holding her by the waist like a hostage or a lover's embrace, as he summoned Shenron. The lights flickered as electricity crackled and the Dragon Balls glowed like crazy before shooting a beam of light into the air. The beam of light formed the shape of the mighty Shenron and materialized, taking the roof clean off of the warehouse. Bulla flinched as the rubble fell away with a crash and the wind whipped her hood off her head. The sky darkened with unnaturally smoky clouds.

"State your wish," boomed the voice of the dragon.

This is it, Bulla thought. In truth, she wasn't exactly sure what he wanted to wish for. Control of the world, perhaps, or maybe something pettier, like the death of Trunks, or even the death of herself. Bulla braced herself for whatever she might hear.

He stated clearly, "Shenron, I wish for an unlimited amount of wishes with no time limit."

Shenron's eyes glowed as he processed the wish. Then he nodded. "It is done."

"You can try to bring your dad back again now," Bulla whispered as her mind raced, trying to figure out his intentions.

"He made his choice. And even if he changed his mind, bringing that fool back would be counterproductive to my plans now. He'd only try to stop me."

"Stop you…from doing what?" Bulla had to ask, even though she was afraid to.

"From wishing until this whole damn planet just sets on fire and disintegrates. From creating enough negative energy to tear the world apart the same way I've been torn apart. My father always had such an affinity for this planet, much more so than his family, so bringing him back would just be a detriment, you see. You want anything, Bulla? For a brief, violent time, this world is ours. We can wish for anything we want, have anything we want, before we finally destroy this filth, and ourselves with it. Let's just fulfill our lives, and then end it all. My father was wrong, after all. There's nothing about this pathetic planet worth saving."

Bulla's eyes widened. He was still behind her, and it was just as well. Hearing his voice saying these things was bad enough, but she didn't think she could have withstood having to see the look in his eyes. He seemed gleeful, ecstatic. She had made a terrible mistake. Her only hope was that her brother was doing something to fix all this. She was so sorry.

She dreaded finding out what he planned on using the final life-fulfilling wishes on.

"This is how the world ends," he whispered, his lips a breath away from her neck. "This is the final act of the tragic farce that was my life, that was this planet's rotten existence. I didn't author my beginning, or my middle, but I sure as hell intend on penning my ending of my own volition. Still, I couldn't have done it without you. I'll reward you. You may make the first wish, and spell the beginning of the end. Start us off, my dear. Doom us. It's delicious, isn't it?"

Hurry, Trunks. Wherever you are. Bulla could only pray to her brother, because this was a problem too big for even gods to help her with now.