"Let me show you..."

In a river of sensation, he was drowning. Just as before, Gokan felt the familiar overwhelming power rush over him. It coursed through him like nothing ever had, sweeping across his body, and passed athwart his eyes in a veil of vague recollection. After a flash of white, and the feeling of vertigo had passed, he tried to gain his bearings.

He was there, but he wasn't there. The figure in the darkness was still gripping onto him firmly, refusing to release its hold. But in the light, there was a warmth that made him forget the hair-raising chill that he fought against. Something told him that the two were not the same. There was a definite distinction between the entities, but he could not grasp it. The blanket of white was descending... Once it crashed against him, everything slowed; a dull roar was filling his ears.

Whispers. Two voices now. They were speaking in a tongue unknown, the accented tones of the dialects striking against his eardrums with a shrill ring. He cringed, and struggled for control. The whispers stopped.

"Where am I?" Gokan asked. When his words did not echo, there was a rapid sinking feeling in his gut...

"Everywhere." And then the presences left him.

As the voice struck his soul, so did the blurred images... They were familiar, somehow. He tried to make some kind of sense of it all, focusing as hard as his young mind could manage on the moving figures. He was apart from the two entities that previously surrounded him- these visions were different. Trying to sift through the jumbled emotions, Gokan tried to figure out who exactly these two new visions represented. Rubble surrounded them, and stone structures were crumbling from the power that the larger exerted. Gokan concentrated on this one... Reaching out with his hand, he tried to touch him, wanted to feel his soul. After moving out amongst the vision, he made contact.

And screamed.

Never in his life had he actually felt the touch of evil. Much less the deep cold that lied within it. It was a thick burning cold that pierced him, and made him recoil in terror. Gokan attempted to catch his breath, hoping to fight against the vertigo that was hitting him again in waves. He had to find something else to focus on. The saiyajin youth looked around quickly, scanning with his eyes- the other figure was gone.

With the realization came the next vision. There was the weaker of the two, ducking in alleys, trying to escape. The son of Gohan felt the strength inside of this one, wanted to do whatever he could to help. His thoughts were registering within the boy's mind, more emotions and pictures than anything else- it was difficult to keep track of them all. He began to reach forward once more, watched as the shadow tripped over a dormant trash can. The warrior tumbled and landed with a painful sounding thud. Suddenly, all of the thoughts became that of terror. He hurriedly stood, moving with a limp down the alleyway. He rounded the next corner, only to collide with the strong body of another figure, and a new emotion on top of the others...

Panic.

For what seemed like the millionth time in less nights, Gokan sat up in a cold sweat. Out of force of habit more than fear, he swiveled his body, reaching above him to make sure that there was indeed a bunk bed there. Still in Kale's ship. The humming of the engine a slight step behind his ragged breathing reminded him that he was finally awake.

He let go of a long sigh, and placed his head within his hands. The sketch. He needed to draw the pictures again... The saiyajin hissed as bare feet met with cold steel on the floor below, and he tip-toed his way to the small desk on the wall. He retrieved the folded sheet of paper once more, followed by a writing utensil. Closing his eyes, Gokan let his hand express his thoughts in ways that he wouldn't be able to normally. When he was finished he gazed upon what he had done. It still made no sense to him. Maybe it would someday...

His thoughts were knocked askew as footsteps rang in the hall behind him, causing him to jerk up straight when the door opened wide. The crack of light hit his vision, and silhouetted the figure in the doorway.

"Gokan?" Goten's voice. He stepped inside to make his way forward. "What are you doing up?"

Gokan tried to answer with something, but was still disoriented.

"Drawing, eh?" Goten smirked as he glanced at the scribbled lines on the page. "Didn't take you for an artist."

The boy let out a nervous chuckle. "It's nothing, really."

"What are you talking about?" his uncle peered forward in the dim light. "From here, that looks pretty good. Odd, but good. What is it?"

"In all honesty, I don't know." Gokan looked down, fidgeting slightly with the pen in his hand. He could feel the man's eyes on him, trying to read him... He supposed that came with his background of being a smuggler. One had to know who was feeding him crap, and who wasn't.

"Well, when you get a name for him," Goten said. "Be sure to let me know."

"Yeah," he replied quietly. The elder saiyajin stared at him for a moment longer, then moved to the light switch on the wall. With a quiet click, the bright rays filled the room, followed by a chorus of groaning from Vegeta and Boxers.

"Get up, guys." He winked at Gokan, and flashed the lights again. A pillow sailed across the room.

"I get the point!" Boxers shouted.

"If I knew how to use my ki..." Vegeta wasn't a morning person.

Goten smiled and grabbed a hold of the boy from his bed, hoisting him out with one arm. "Tough talk."

"You'll see. The first move I make up on my own is going to be for you."

"Oh really?" the man raised his eyebrow fractionally. The teen in his hands was trying to free himself, however futile the procedure proved to be.

"Yeah. It'll be called the crotch-assault. Guess what it does?"

Goten dropped him, and laughed. "All in due time. Get your stuff ready. We're here."

Boxers was still trying to move out of bed, mumbling to himself as he did so. "What stuff? I wasn't really expecting this vacation..." For the whole trip, he had complained about not having any of his belongings... If one could indeed consider what they were given at the institution "possessions".

Gokan turned to face his uncle. "Wait, what do you mean, 'we're here'?"

"Thorbos," Piccolo's gruff voice echoed from the corridor as he entered with clothing in hand. "We're about to land in a few minutes."

"Thorbos? The home of the Wayward?"

"Don't get too excited," Goten snorted. "It's a dump."

"This dump will keep the Galactics out of our hair," Piccolo said dryly. "I suppose you know of a better hiding place..."

"Sarn wasn't too bad."

"And a lot of cover that gave you," the Namek brushed past the saiyajin, who let his eyes rest firmly on the other's back. After a flash of contempt, he turned and left the room. Gokan frowned, unsure of what to make of the situation. Perhaps he would ask Piccolo later...

Vegeta motioned towards the clothes in the elder's hands. "What are those?"

"Put them on," Piccolo ordered. He tossed the garments around the room. Before he even knew what hit him, Gokan felt the weight of the material knock him over from its force. He stumbled back a few steps and collided with the desk, watching as Vegeta and Boxers did the same; they tumbled helplessly to the floor.

"Are you out of your mind?!" the black haired twin was trying to stand up. The sharp contrast between the frustration on his face and the exertion of a motion as simple as rising would make any normal person bowl over in laughter. Not Piccolo- he was all business. Something told Gokan that this wasn't going to be quite the joyride they had always thought...

"These are your training clothes," Piccolo informed without the slightest rise of pitch in his voice. "Yes, they are weighted."

"Quick thinking, Sherlock," Boxers muttered from his spot on the floor. He was having less superiority over the weight than his brother. "Couldn't you have found something bulkier for us, Piccolo? I think I can move too freely in these."

"That can be arranged."

The lilac-haired teen mumbled something incoherent as he started to put the clothes on, jamming his limbs inside violently in a display of rebellion.

"I'm sure this will help in the long run," Gokan offered.

"Oh, shutup," Vegeta grumbled. He made a mock impression: "I'm sure this will help in the long run..."

A sudden hiss of air from outside told them they were making their descent. The saiyajins made brief eye contact with one another, the realisation sinking in fast that this was actually happening. They all seemed to know that this moment marked the end of their heritage as earthlings, and started everything over...

Gokan stirred. "When do we start?" The craft jolted with landing.

"Passengers, this is your captain speaking..." Kale's voice over the comm. "Please place all saiyajins in tow-away bags, if they've not already been vented into the vacuum of hyperspace..."

The Namek grunted with what sounded like a chuckle, and then faced them.

"Right now."

--------

Panic and fear were like a magnifying lens on physical response. The beads of sweat that climbed their individual paths down Ubuu's forehead became rivers of failure, reminders that he had accomplished nothing in the past 16 years of training- he couldn't even avenge one man. That was all he wanted to do. On his back, the gritty concrete slid against the tiny cuts and splits of skin. A shard of glass embedded in his shoulder dug in further, and he let out a sharp gasp of breath, ventilating between his shut teeth to keep from screaming. Slamming the dorsal part of his skull against the brick behind him, he pressed his body closer to the building, keeping himself flush in the dark alley, hoping to not be seen by J'erah, who was still on the warpath.

Is this what he had been reduced to? Ubuu shut his eyes tightly to curse the flood of tears that suddenly rolled to the forefront of his vision. The droplets of water squeezed from the clamped covers to mix with his sweat and blood, forming an amalgamate of all of his weakness. Together, the three swirled from his face, and landed with a dull thud on the broken ground below. Hiding. He had worked for all of these years to end up in hiding. What good was he? What good was he to himself or anyone else? The anger that began to swell in his chest nearly caused a jump in his ki, and he fought for control, shoving the power into the recesses of his being...

The small increase was like a flare in the night.

Suddenly, the wall shattered behind him, an invisible fist planted against his spinal cord. As a rag doll, Ubuu launched forward. The lowered ki in addition with his already weakened state proved to only enhance the pain of his forehead slamming through the brick barrier ahead of him, and he could feel the skin break and give way to a flow of crimson blood. While his body tumbled through the infrastructure of the building, the corners gave way and toppled over above him. After a loud rumble, the entire concrete tower started to collapse. Having nothing else to do, Ubuu lifted his arms to deflect the steel and rock alike that were crumbling against his frame. Raising his ki would only mean having to escape J'erah's vision again, which proved to be an arduous task in and of itself.

A steel beam collided against the bone of his forearm, causing a small fracture to ripple through. The warrior cursed loudly, and fell helplessly to the floor, his weight cracking the tiling... There had to be something below this. In a surprising stroke of strategy, the human rolled over, and threw his fists through the linoleum. The floor gave way, and he could feel himself plow through to the basement area, bringing rubble with him.

Ubuu glanced upwards. The hole he had left was beginning to become unstable- tiny cracks were launching either direction in a spider web shape. It didn't take a genius to know that he had to get out. J'erah's ki was just on the street opposite... With a quick leap, the fighter pushed his body upwards and to the right, diving in a diagonal cut through the furthest corner of the building's foundation. That had been all it needed. Standing on only three supports, the entire thing rolled to the left and came crashing down on top of the Galactic. He was definitely going to be pissed...

Ubuu decided he wouldn't stick around to find out. But he certainly didn't have enough time to escape with no ki- he wouldn't be moving fast enough to get any kind of distance on the general. He ran quickly through his options... On an unexplained impulse, he focused all of his ki together, removing it from his body, and thrusting it behind a building on the other end of the square. The technique was something he had explored many years ago after a brief skirmish with Galactic troops. It was almost like ventriliquism, but it projected his life essence, rather than his voice, somewhere else. However, it took an awful lot of focus to keep the illusion up...

"AHHH!!" The rubble that had encased J'erah exploded into life, elevating into the sky. It shot outwards in all directions, kicking up clouds of dust and debris around the arena. Ubuu dove hurriedly into an alley next to him, falling down on his knees, and pressing himself against a wall there. He closed his eyes, and tried to keep his ki doing the same thing several hundred yards away. The hard part was making sure that J'erah did not have a clear line of vision to where he thought the ki was- otherwise, the game was up. Better keep things realistic... Ubuu started to decrease the amount of power, making it look as if he was shielding himself or trying to elude the other.

"You won't get away that easily!" J'erah cackled from the square. Right on the heels of his echoing laughter came the explosion of another building. The sound was amplified in the ringing of the human's already buzzing head. Ubuu concentrated, and made the projection of his ki zip several yards away. If he could keep this up just a little bit longer, J'erah would hopefully follow, and he could make a run for it. As he put greater distance between his physical body and his presence, the focus was harder to maintain. Luckily, the Galactic was falling for it. He could hear the bootsteps moving further and further away... After what seemed like an eternity, they hit the other side of the clearing.

Now. Ubuu climbed quickly to his feet, running with a limp down the alleyway. Still projecting his ki, he began to hobble as noiselessly as his shuffling feet would allow him to away from J'erah. If he could make it to the subway system, he could just pass out and regain his strength... Each dragged footstep boomed inside of his own eardrums, a rhythmic pounding of fear. Only a little further to go...

Without warning, J'erah's ki disappeared. Ubuu slid to a halt.

"Don't panic," he whispered, aloud so that it was more reassuring. Maybe he was just far away... He pressed out with his senses, but there was nothing. The rain fell in chubby splashes all around him, and the wind sailed its way through the maze of back alleys. Ubuu looked in either direction, his breathing beginning to become more rapid. All sound seemed to pause save for his heartbeat.

Don't panic. That sense of akward terror was welling up in his gut, that feeling of being on the edge of a cliff that you can't see. Any second, and you knew you were going to plummet to your death. But you had no idea when it was going to come.

Don't panic. A sound from the arena. Unknowingly, Ubuu gasped. He had just realised that when J'erah's ki faded, he had forgotten the charade that he was supposed to be acting out, and had let his focus drop. Now, the Galactic was certain to know... and Ubuu couldn't sense him at all.

The rain drops were beginning to drown out any background noise. His heartbeat was drowning out the rain. Fear was about a millisecond away from stopping his heart completely. Fear of failure. Fear of not coming through. And that would be his legacy.

Behind him, he thought he heard footsteps. Ubuu spun to face absolutely nothing, and stumbled backwards. The pivotal motion caused his hip to brush against an empty trash can, throwing the metallic recepticle with a loud crash to the ground. And with that, the terror siezed hold. The warrior fell over the container, struggling to his feet and sprinting away as fast his limp would manage. He kept throwing glances behind him, slipping and hopping his way down the narrow path, feeling the rain splatter against his face. All he had to do was get to the subway around the next corner...

He slid his way around the turn, grabbing a hold of the brick building to keep his balance. It flung him around the curve, only to slam into the solid frame of a body in front of him, standing still and gazing down at his obvious shock.

Panic.