Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Changing Seasons ❯ Journey To Jalamir ( Chapter 1 )

"Do you really think this is nessary, Father?" Neko sat in the seat beside Piccolo, her black booted feet resting, crossed over at her ankles, upon the control panel of the small ship her mother had been able too get at the last minute from one of her more influential friends. Somethings, Neko thought as she played with a strand of her dark hair, having a rich parent was worthwhile. "I mean, according to the readout, Jalamir is pretty far…"

"We are doing this for your own good, Neko." Piccolo said, punching some buttons which would allow them to fly accordingly, estimated time of arrival in Jalamir's atmosphere was about seventeen days. "You need to be able to say good bye to her, for the last time…"

Neko slipped her feet down to the hard floor of the ship with a loud bang and crossed her arms under her small breasts, glaring out at the darkness and the pinpricks of stars around them, "I said goodbye to her the day I saw that bitch slice her head from her body and hold it up like some morbid trophy."

"No, Neko." Piccolo glanced sidelong at this woman who was his daughter in all ways but blood, "You did not. You've only kept the image of her death and the pain of needing vengence within you for so long that you've lost sight of anything else…"

"That is so not true!" She raged, dark eyebrows coming down like stormclouds over even darker eyes, "I haven't lost sight of what's real, what's important!" She clenched her fists in her lap so hard the knuckled whitened, "Revenge is most important and I will have it!"

Piccolo looked away, back out at the constantly moving stars and sighed, uncertain of how to reply to her last impassioned outburst. Finally, after a few long moments that seemed to strench between them like eons, he said; "Neko. This trip will do you good. I know it. It will do us both good." For we have been growing farther and farther apart as time goes by, He thought, sadly. He had hoped this trip would be a chance to change that, to become as close as they were when she'd been just a little girl.

Now, as he watched his daughter rise, the crimson gi she had taken to wearing nearly all the time now, even while not training, stark like blood against the gray backdrop of the craft's interior, and head towards the back, muttering something about needing to sleep for awhile, he feared that this trip was going to take much longer than planned. Or at least feel like it.

He turned back to the veiwscreen ahead of him, gazing out at the blackness without for half a moment before closing his eyes and beginning the deep breathing excercises nessessary to begin the initial stage of meditation. As practiced as he was at it, he slipped effortlessly into a deeper state of conscience like a diver slides beneath the surface of the water into the icy, darken depths below.

Neko sat on the small bed, thankful that the gravity hadn't failed them yet. As much as she trusted her mother, she did not always trust those odd friends,( who were really more friends of her late grandparents and only agree to do favors for her mother out of some warped sense of duty to their lost friends), not to sell them used crap or defective equiptment. It wouldn't have been the first time. But she had gone over every nut and bolt herself and everything seemed in working order. She just hoped she hadn't missed anything. It would all they'd need to be stranded on some godforsaken planet while waiting for repairs.

Neko was good at fixing things, she'd discovered this when she was thirteen and her mother's microwave had blown out. After taking it apart and reasembling it, she'd realized how much she had really enjoyed it and had spent whatever time she had outside of training taking things apart and putting them back together, often making them work even better than before. Her mother was always pleasantly surprised at the little `gifts' her daughter left her around the house from time to time. It made Neko feel good inside to know she had a talent other than her fighting skill, something to fall back on if ever she needed it.

She slipped off her shiny black boots and lay them next to each other beside the foot of the bunk. She liked sleeping on the bottom bunk and having the bottom of the top bunk overhead like a protective box cover. At least, she thought she did, the few times since they'd left Earth's atmosphere that she'd come back to her quarters to meditate and reflect for awhile. Now, though, as she lay on top of the starched white sheets, the one thin blue blanket folded down the end of the bed, the bottom of the bunk overhead felt like the lid of a coffin.