schubskie: Thanks for the review! And good guess! I do agree with you that Marie seemed a bit rude in the beginning, but for some reason I was laughing when I wrote that (she does have her view of things). And I was just thinking of how Gohan and Marie can "control" plants being called "plant bending". :)

Chapter 12: Explanations

All he could see was black, so he figured that he was still asleep but somewhat conscious. He could hear voices, but he couldn't tell whose they were. They sounded familiar, but with the haze that he was in, he knew that he couldn't really tell.

What happened? He thought, his mind not really helping him to remember what had happened before he had passed out.

His memories seemed to be in shreds, flitting across his vision in tatters and showing bits and pieces. Some seemed to be from a long time ago – he could tell because of his age in the memories – but others seemed to be more recent.

Suddenly it all came back to him: running away from home, falling off the cliff, the alleyway…

He groaned as he felt his head throb. He then heard the voices stop for a moment and he could have sworn that someone was looking at him, but with the darkness he was in, he couldn't really tell.

The voices then continued, getting clearer with each passing minute.

"He just passed out!" he heard a girl's voice angrily exclaim; he assumed that the girl was talking about him.

"We know…" Gohan heard a voice start to say gently, but it was interrupted by another voice.

"You two shouldn't have snuck him out of the building in the first place!" the next voice interrupted angrily and Gohan was finally able to put a name to the angry voice.

Piccolo, he thought while naming the voices, and Krillin and Leyla.

"Piccolo, take it easy on them. We don't know why they did it," his father's voice now joined into the conversation while confirming Gohan's guesses.

The next thing he heard was whispering and a few moments of tense silence.

"Marie, are you going to tell him?" Leyla asked with a sigh. He then felt Marie's Ki rise a bit, but she remained silent.

"Marie…" his father started, but Gohan didn't hear him finish.

"I'm not going to tell you anything!" Marie suddenly shouted, her rise in voice volume mirrored her rise in Ki.

He then felt the headache return. Suddenly aware that he could move, he opened his eyes and saw his friend standing with her back turned to him, a stubborn look on her face.

He quickly looked around and saw that he was back in the building, but there was a big flower under him instead of a bed. He realized that Marie must have made it.

"Marie?" he questioned in a whisper, realizing how weak he actually was.

At the sound of his voice, everyone in the room turned to look at him with surprised looks, somewhat making him feel subconscious.

He looked up at Marie to see that she had turned around to face him, a worried but relieved look in her eyes.

"You're awake," she whispered before sitting down beside him on the flower. He sat up and blinked a few time, trying to make sense of what was going on.

"What were you guys arguing about?" he asked as he looked around, realizing that Krillin, Marie, Leyla, Piccolo, his father, and Vegeta were in the room.

No one answered him right away, which made him somewhat mad since he figured that he had a right to know. A few moments later, Marie somewhat answered his question.

"It's nothing you need to worry about," Marie whispered, making Gohan confused. Some part of his memory was tugging at something, but he couldn't remember anything past when he fell to the ground.

"Of course he needs to know about it! It could have killed him!" Leyla yelled, while Marie whipped her head around to glare at the other girl; the look sending shivers through him.

"What… could have killed me?" he questioned looking around the room while feeling even more confused. He figured that it had something to do with the memory that he was having a hard time remembering.

Marie looked once more at everyone else in the room before sitting on the ground in front of him.

"I'll help," she whispered, "close your eyes and clear your mind."

Gohan was confused by this, but he did as she said, wondering if she meant about helping him to remember the memory that seemed to elude him.

He suddenly felt a flash of pain go through him before seeing brief images. He saw a flash of dark green thorns come up out of the ground and form a barrier around something.

Even though the images were brief, the pain he felt with each one got worse until he couldn't handle it. Just as he was sure that Marie was about to show him more, he quickly pulled away, losing his balance and tumbling backwards onto the floor.

He felt his heavy breathing as he stared up at Marie from his position on the floor, realizing that the flower she made was much bigger this time from the height he fell at onto the floor.

"What…?" he started to ask, but then stopped to catch his breath, shaking his head in confusion.

Marie helped him up onto the flower, making sure that he wasn't going to fall off again.

"Gohan, are you ok?" he looked over to see his father looking over at him with concern on his face.

"I'm fine!" Gohan snapped suddenly, feeling as if his emotions were being controlled again. Marie's eyes widened for a moment from where she was sitting beside him, while everyone else was equally shocked.

"Sorry," he said quickly, glancing towards the floor.

That's the second time I feel like that. What is going on? He thought with confusion.

"Emotion sharing," Marie whispered from beside him, making him startled.

Did she just read my mind? Gohan thought with confusion as he looked over at his friend. Marie looked over at him and smiled.

"Yep," she said with a smile, making Gohan fall backwards in surprise again.

"Gohan, is everything ok?" Krillin asked him from where he was standing.

"Yes, everything's fine," he stated quickly as he got up and pulled Marie into his room.

He quickly shut the door and was going to lock it when light green vines appeared on the doorknob and covered the door.

"Easier that way," Marie stated from behind him, making him a bit creeped out by his friend's behavior.

"Marie, what happened? What is going on? How can you read my mind?" he asked the first questions that popped into his mind. Marie sat down and sighed.

"I have a lot of explaining to do…" Marie said with a sigh. Gohan sat down beside her.

"Yes, you do," he stated, wondering how much Marie actually knew.

"Start from the beginning," Marie whisper but then her tone got louder, "what you just experienced was emotion and memory sharing."

"Emotion and memory sharing?" he repeated, feeling confused.

"Yes, memory sharing is where one Lotus host transmits a memory or image to another Lotus host. Emotion sharing is when one Lotus host feels what another host is feeling," Marie explained while staring at the floor, "also; Lotus hosts can hear each others thoughts."

"Ok," Gohan said, taking a deep breath, "then why can't I hear your thoughts?"

Marie didn't answer for a moment; she seemed to be thinking hard.

"I don't know," she answered truthfully, "maybe it just takes practice."

Gohan nodded, but then thought of something.

"How do you know all of this?" he asked. When he looked at Marie, she seemed to have a scared look on her face.

"Well…" she started but then stopped and stared over at the open window. Gohan also stared at the window and realized that something was moving outside. He crept over to the window and saw a shadow reflected from down below, as well as heavy breathing.

Ok, creepy, he thought as he shivered and looked back at Marie. She was once again glaring at the window, making him remember that she had been doing that the other day.

He quickly stood up and looked out the window, realizing with surprise that Leyla was trying to climb up the side of the ledge leading to the window.

"What are you doing?" he asked as he saw Leyla look up at him with wide eyes.

"Well…" she started nervously. Gohan felt someone squeeze in beside him.

"That's how you've been spying on us," Marie stated coldly, completely the opposite of what she had acted like a few moments ago.

"You've been spying on us?" Gohan asked with surprise, looking down at his longtime friend.

"Well…" Leyla started again, looking very uncomfortable on the ledge. Gohan sighed.

"Why didn't you just fly up?" Gohan asked.

"You guys would sense me, but I guess that's how you found out," Leyla answered with a sheepish smile.

Gohan laughed a bit as he helped her up. He glanced over at Marie and saw that she was not happy.

"What?" he asked as he stared at Marie.

"She was spying on us," Marie said, pouting.

"Yes, but she's forgiven. I'm sure she had a reason to," he said, noticing that Marie had a confused look on her face.

"What?" he asked when he saw her mood change.

"Nothing," she stated as she quickly looked away, staring at the floor.

Gohan shook his head as he closed the window and the three of them sat down.

"What happened when I passed out," Gohan asked partially to change the subject, but he was also wondering about the images Marie had shown him through memory sharing.

"It's kind of hard to explain but…" Leyla paused for a moment, "these huge, thorny vines came out of the ground and surrounded you so we couldn't get to you."

Gohan remembered seeing something like that in the images.

"Yeah, but why couldn't you just destroy the vines?" he asked, wondering why he didn't remember any of this.

"That's the thing, we tried, but the vines were immune to Ki blasts and other attacks," Leyla said as she shook her head.

"How did you get me out then?" he questioned, feeling even more confused.

"Marie did something," Leyla said as both of them stared at his blonde haired friend. She looked just as subconscious as he had when everyone had stared at him earlier.

"I asked them to," Marie answered shortly before looking away again. Gohan nodded since he understood, but Leyla had a confused look on her face.

"What?" she asked in confusion.

"It's hard to explain," he said while laughing a bit. Leyla looked back and forth between him and Leyla before continuing.

"Anyway, when we got you out, you were still passed out but the thorns had cut you pretty bad," Leyla said, making Gohan remember that he had felt like his skin was stinging back when he was asleep.

The room then lapsed into silence, giving Gohan time to think things over.

That still doesn't explain why I feel like something else happened. They aren't telling me the whole truth, he thought, knowing that they wouldn't talk any more about what had happened.

So, how was this chapter? I think a few key factors were revealed in this chapter, especially about more of the powers of the Lotus. So what do you think will happen next? And what/why do you think that Marie won't tell Gohan the whole truth? I hope you enjoyed and please review!

-AnimeWolfGirl9