Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Dragonball Victory : Legends Never Die ❯ XXII ( Chapter 22 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Faia Saiyajin 
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Occult / Martial Arts / Comedy / Adventure / Action | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 01.27.2003 | Pages: 1 | Words: 1.9K | Visits: 137 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Occult / Martial Arts / Comedy / Adventure / Action | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 01.27.2003 | Pages: 1 | Words: 1.9K | Visits: 137 | Status: Completed
XXII
It had taken a great deal of coercing, but the meager group of survivors Kuririn and Juuhatchi-Gou had found walked silently, single file, into a large cave behind Muuri's village. If it hadn't been for Hammer, the two Chikyuujins would have had their hands full. He'd sent his brothers off to find Yarn, Needle, and Thread. Nail… no… Piccolo had gone off to find the Saiyajin.
He stood by the mouth of the cave, whispering words of comfort to the refugees. The two off-worlders stood by what had been his home, the shorter of the two staring at the ground, his arms crossed. The last of his people shuffled into the cave emotionlessly, and he put himself at the entrance. He would not allow another massacre, not like the ones that happened around the planet. Hammer's brow ridges pressed together, as he drew himself up. Tall, even for a Nameckjin, he still would have looked nondescript, like the rest of the species, if it weren't for the missing tip of his right ear. A good two inches was gone, torn off in an accident when he was still a child. Regeneration was always a possibility, but he seemed proud of the wound. It made him different, recognizable. Something that would make him stand out. He fingered the old injury for a moment, before he noticed what he was doing, and forced himself to lower his hand.
Popping the middle joint in his thumbs, his attention turned skyward; as he saw the shadows cast by the wreckage grow longer. Above him, and closing in fast, a ki ball, too big for him to even compare with something, cut the air with a whistling noise. One of that size would not only kill him, but everyone inside.
Rotating on their heels, Kuririn and Juuhatchi-Gou saw the sphere only a fraction of a second before Hammer did. Kuririn prepared to destroy it with his own attack. But his wife stopped him, pursing her lips in thought.
"It's too large, and too close. The explosion is out of safe distance."
"Then we'll make it smaller." Kuririn took a deep breath, putting on his 'valiant warrior' face, raising his left hand over his head. Pooling a good deal of energy into his palm, he forced it to rotate, until the ki's inertia caused it to flatten into a broad disk with edges that could cut through anything. He then did it with the other hand, until he held aloft two whirring blades. It came without thought, this process. Jumping to meet the incoming sphere, he threw them with all his might. "KIENZAN!"
Slicing through the sphere as if it were cloth, the first one sliced through it effortlessly, halving the bus-sized blast. The other skimmed off the top, missing. But he didn't worry, as he felt a surge from his wife and Hammer. The Nameckjin tossed up a shield around the opening of the cave, a transparent blue half-circle, radiating out from the center of his hands, which were held out, his fingers curled, the bases of his palms touching. Juuhatchi-Gou stood directly in front of Hammer, rapid-firing two dozen ki spheres, which pummeled the other blasts until they finally exploded. Kuririn rooted himself to the spot, holding himself aloft. Juuhatchi braced herself, crossing her arms before her face, he boots digging into the ground. Hammer's shield wavered, but didn't fall, as the two blasts sent showers of earth and rock into the air.
"Juuhatchi!" His eyes had remained open the entire time, and he felt the Kienzan contact something and explode. "Is everyone all right?"
She looked over her shoulder. Hammer had dropped the shield, scowling at nothing the way Nameckjin seemed to do, before retreating inside to check on the others. "Yeah. Everything is under control."
A loud plop twenty yards ahead of him made Kuririn look down. There, having just hit the ground, lay a severed arm. It was pale-skinned, heavily muscled, with a dark blue cuff around the wrist. Bits of orange floated down above it, taking their sweet time in hitting the ground. The owner, still in the air, higher even than Kuririn, growled, clutching the bleeding opening where his arm had been.
"GOKOU?!" Kuririn's jaw dropped open, and he jetted off towards him. "Holy..!! Was that YOU who fired tha-"
"Kuririn! Get away!" Juuhatchi took to the air, clutching Buruma's device in her fingers. She'd taken it from her husband after the group had split up. She'd figured out how it worked, and the blinking red and black lights a few millimeters from the southern edge of the crystal did not mean a good thing. "That's not Son Gokou!"
Angered that he had been caught, the apparent impostor snarled curses at Kuririn, words that would NEVER be found coming from the real Gokou's mouth. "Traitor!" He finally spat, and phased out, leaving Kuririn and Juuhatchi-Gou behind. Kuririn was still staring at the empty sky, when Juuhatchi-Gou brought him around.
"What… the …HELL?!" A thousand different thoughts ran through his head. Someone who could change forms? Was that what that was? He found himself swallowing hard. Ginyu. That was a name that did not bring back pleasant memories. But his body had been destroyed, and for all Kuririn knew, Ginyu-Frog was still living behind the Capsule Corporation in the nearest pond.
While he was busy pondering, Juuhatchi-Gou had fetched the arm from where it lay on the ground. "Kuririn."
His lip curled at the sight of the appendage. "Get that thing away from me!"
Taking a deep, calming breath, she set fire to the limb, darkly red ki flames that burned away the tissue, until nothing was left behind, save for the skeleton. And instead of white bone, this was silvery, crisscrossed with the pattern of inlaid circuitry. Juuhatchi-Gou glowered at it. "I told you. That wasn't Son just now. It was a replica of him. Grown, not born. …a cyborg. Or something like it."
"A cyborg?! Who…?" A little flashbulb went off inside Kuririn's mind, and his face went white. "Could… Gero? But… he's dead!"
The Android was silent. The red and black spots, signal lights for both living and non-living forms, were out of range on this viewing. Pressing a button, one that nearly matched the color of the box itself, and flush with the surface, she zoomed out, until the twin lights were on the screen again, still, almost on the other side of the planet. "I'll follow this one. You go warn the others." Before Kuririn could protest, she embraced him suddenly, gracefully, despite her being nearly twice his height. "I don't have a power level, remember? They won't notice me."
Kuririn sighed, holding her tightly. She smelled good. Of the shampoo they had at home, and faintly of the powder she'd used on Marron. He forced a smile. "Okay. But be careful." He held her at arm's length, both of his hands on her forearms. "If there's any trouble… for Kami-sama's sake, get the hell out of there!"
She smiled. Kuririn matched it brightly, in his mind. When she did indeed smile, it was a beautiful one. He found himself kissing her without warning, and then watching her leave, before it even registered. Sighing again, he scratched the back of his head. "Look for Gokou. Make sure he has two arms. I always get the strange missions." He started off, his ki rippling white around him. "What I wouldn't give for Shunkan Idou." The terrain below him was a blur, and it wasn't hard to find the real Gokou. Vejiita, Piccolo, and Kaeru were with him. He hoped it was the real ones, though. Because if not, Kaeru was in trouble. Her ki was low, and he couldn't tell if it was from injury, or if she was just holding it that way.
He zipped by Gohan and Videl on his journey, ignoring them completely. To his eyes, they were just shapes of color, until they came within a few feet, where they were crystal clear. They stayed that way for a fraction of a second, almost in slow-motion, until he passed them. Then they were just voices. 'I don't know if that's the real them. At least Gokou I can rely on. Unless…' He swallowed hard. 'Unless they've made more than one. Some sort of underground factory spitting out Gokou-cyborgs. Shit… we'd be screwed. Just ought to roll over and give up now, if that's the case…'
Turning left sharply, he came across the party he was looking for. Gokou --with both arms in their correct places, thank you Kami-sama-- leading, Vejiita and Piccolo flanking him. Piccolo was carrying Kaeru by her armpits, the woman hanging limply from his grasp. Her head hung forward slightly, cradled by her shoulders as she hung there. Kuririn circled around, beside Piccolo. "Gokou! We've got major trouble!"
They stopped dead, the Nameckjin adjusting his parcel to a more comfortable position. Kuririn continued. "We found some survivors, west of here. We'd taken them back to the caves by Muuri's, when we were attacked. No one was hurt… but… uhm…" He took a deep breath. "You were the one attacking, Gokou. A replica of you, or something. Juuhatchi-Gou figured out Buruma's gizmo. She said it was both human and non-human. Some sort of cyborg, she thinks, maybe made by Gero, a nuts idea I know, given that he's dead, but given the circumstances of my life, no one around here stays dead for very long." Catching himself on the rant, having said it all in one long sentence, he coughed, composing himself. "She's trailing it now."
"That explains it, then." Vejiita said sharply. "Gohan's strange behavior."
"A cyborg? Of me?"
"And me, apparently. And of Gohan as well." Piccolo grumbled, denying himself a glance at the woman in his arms.
"You guys have seen them?"
"Yeah. Well, Gohan, anyway. Kaeru was attacked by both Piccolo and Gohan. Gohan nearly killed her." Gokou crossed his arms, thinking. "If we would have had that thingy from Bururma, we could have tracked the others down."
"We should keep moving. Trunks and Goten are still in trouble. Along with Gohan and Videl." The Saiyajin Prince stated.
"I saw Gohan a while back. I figure he's trailing me, given that I didn't speak to him. Videl was there, too."
Gokou closed his eyes, mentally communicating with those missing. 'All of you be very careful. There are impostors roaming about. So far, we know of cyborgs that look like Gohan, Piccolo, and myself. Abandon the search for survivors. We need the Dragonballs. That's what these fakes are looking for. If you have any trouble, go Super Saiyajin. There is safety in numbers. Try to stick together.' The message over, he opened his eyes. Piccolo had started explaining to Kuririn what was wrong with Kaeru.
"She's lost a lot of blood…" He hadn't even gotten the sentence out, when Kuririn nearly squeaked. Recoiling as if bitten by the vampire, Kuririn backed away.
"There's plenty of bodies around here! Get her one of them! Leave my neck out of this!" He slapped both of his hands over his throat.
"I wasn't talking about you." Piccolo glared at Kuririn. "Let's go." Leading this time, carrying the unconscious Kaeru like she was a baby, he continued scanning the ground, for bodies and Dragonballs alike. 'Hold on, my people.' He found himself thinking, accompanied by the two other Nameckjin he shared his head with. Then it was his voice, alone in his skull. 'And you too, Kaeru. Hold on.'
It had taken a great deal of coercing, but the meager group of survivors Kuririn and Juuhatchi-Gou had found walked silently, single file, into a large cave behind Muuri's village. If it hadn't been for Hammer, the two Chikyuujins would have had their hands full. He'd sent his brothers off to find Yarn, Needle, and Thread. Nail… no… Piccolo had gone off to find the Saiyajin.
He stood by the mouth of the cave, whispering words of comfort to the refugees. The two off-worlders stood by what had been his home, the shorter of the two staring at the ground, his arms crossed. The last of his people shuffled into the cave emotionlessly, and he put himself at the entrance. He would not allow another massacre, not like the ones that happened around the planet. Hammer's brow ridges pressed together, as he drew himself up. Tall, even for a Nameckjin, he still would have looked nondescript, like the rest of the species, if it weren't for the missing tip of his right ear. A good two inches was gone, torn off in an accident when he was still a child. Regeneration was always a possibility, but he seemed proud of the wound. It made him different, recognizable. Something that would make him stand out. He fingered the old injury for a moment, before he noticed what he was doing, and forced himself to lower his hand.
Popping the middle joint in his thumbs, his attention turned skyward; as he saw the shadows cast by the wreckage grow longer. Above him, and closing in fast, a ki ball, too big for him to even compare with something, cut the air with a whistling noise. One of that size would not only kill him, but everyone inside.
Rotating on their heels, Kuririn and Juuhatchi-Gou saw the sphere only a fraction of a second before Hammer did. Kuririn prepared to destroy it with his own attack. But his wife stopped him, pursing her lips in thought.
"It's too large, and too close. The explosion is out of safe distance."
"Then we'll make it smaller." Kuririn took a deep breath, putting on his 'valiant warrior' face, raising his left hand over his head. Pooling a good deal of energy into his palm, he forced it to rotate, until the ki's inertia caused it to flatten into a broad disk with edges that could cut through anything. He then did it with the other hand, until he held aloft two whirring blades. It came without thought, this process. Jumping to meet the incoming sphere, he threw them with all his might. "KIENZAN!"
Slicing through the sphere as if it were cloth, the first one sliced through it effortlessly, halving the bus-sized blast. The other skimmed off the top, missing. But he didn't worry, as he felt a surge from his wife and Hammer. The Nameckjin tossed up a shield around the opening of the cave, a transparent blue half-circle, radiating out from the center of his hands, which were held out, his fingers curled, the bases of his palms touching. Juuhatchi-Gou stood directly in front of Hammer, rapid-firing two dozen ki spheres, which pummeled the other blasts until they finally exploded. Kuririn rooted himself to the spot, holding himself aloft. Juuhatchi braced herself, crossing her arms before her face, he boots digging into the ground. Hammer's shield wavered, but didn't fall, as the two blasts sent showers of earth and rock into the air.
"Juuhatchi!" His eyes had remained open the entire time, and he felt the Kienzan contact something and explode. "Is everyone all right?"
She looked over her shoulder. Hammer had dropped the shield, scowling at nothing the way Nameckjin seemed to do, before retreating inside to check on the others. "Yeah. Everything is under control."
A loud plop twenty yards ahead of him made Kuririn look down. There, having just hit the ground, lay a severed arm. It was pale-skinned, heavily muscled, with a dark blue cuff around the wrist. Bits of orange floated down above it, taking their sweet time in hitting the ground. The owner, still in the air, higher even than Kuririn, growled, clutching the bleeding opening where his arm had been.
"GOKOU?!" Kuririn's jaw dropped open, and he jetted off towards him. "Holy..!! Was that YOU who fired tha-"
"Kuririn! Get away!" Juuhatchi took to the air, clutching Buruma's device in her fingers. She'd taken it from her husband after the group had split up. She'd figured out how it worked, and the blinking red and black lights a few millimeters from the southern edge of the crystal did not mean a good thing. "That's not Son Gokou!"
Angered that he had been caught, the apparent impostor snarled curses at Kuririn, words that would NEVER be found coming from the real Gokou's mouth. "Traitor!" He finally spat, and phased out, leaving Kuririn and Juuhatchi-Gou behind. Kuririn was still staring at the empty sky, when Juuhatchi-Gou brought him around.
"What… the …HELL?!" A thousand different thoughts ran through his head. Someone who could change forms? Was that what that was? He found himself swallowing hard. Ginyu. That was a name that did not bring back pleasant memories. But his body had been destroyed, and for all Kuririn knew, Ginyu-Frog was still living behind the Capsule Corporation in the nearest pond.
While he was busy pondering, Juuhatchi-Gou had fetched the arm from where it lay on the ground. "Kuririn."
His lip curled at the sight of the appendage. "Get that thing away from me!"
Taking a deep, calming breath, she set fire to the limb, darkly red ki flames that burned away the tissue, until nothing was left behind, save for the skeleton. And instead of white bone, this was silvery, crisscrossed with the pattern of inlaid circuitry. Juuhatchi-Gou glowered at it. "I told you. That wasn't Son just now. It was a replica of him. Grown, not born. …a cyborg. Or something like it."
"A cyborg?! Who…?" A little flashbulb went off inside Kuririn's mind, and his face went white. "Could… Gero? But… he's dead!"
The Android was silent. The red and black spots, signal lights for both living and non-living forms, were out of range on this viewing. Pressing a button, one that nearly matched the color of the box itself, and flush with the surface, she zoomed out, until the twin lights were on the screen again, still, almost on the other side of the planet. "I'll follow this one. You go warn the others." Before Kuririn could protest, she embraced him suddenly, gracefully, despite her being nearly twice his height. "I don't have a power level, remember? They won't notice me."
Kuririn sighed, holding her tightly. She smelled good. Of the shampoo they had at home, and faintly of the powder she'd used on Marron. He forced a smile. "Okay. But be careful." He held her at arm's length, both of his hands on her forearms. "If there's any trouble… for Kami-sama's sake, get the hell out of there!"
She smiled. Kuririn matched it brightly, in his mind. When she did indeed smile, it was a beautiful one. He found himself kissing her without warning, and then watching her leave, before it even registered. Sighing again, he scratched the back of his head. "Look for Gokou. Make sure he has two arms. I always get the strange missions." He started off, his ki rippling white around him. "What I wouldn't give for Shunkan Idou." The terrain below him was a blur, and it wasn't hard to find the real Gokou. Vejiita, Piccolo, and Kaeru were with him. He hoped it was the real ones, though. Because if not, Kaeru was in trouble. Her ki was low, and he couldn't tell if it was from injury, or if she was just holding it that way.
He zipped by Gohan and Videl on his journey, ignoring them completely. To his eyes, they were just shapes of color, until they came within a few feet, where they were crystal clear. They stayed that way for a fraction of a second, almost in slow-motion, until he passed them. Then they were just voices. 'I don't know if that's the real them. At least Gokou I can rely on. Unless…' He swallowed hard. 'Unless they've made more than one. Some sort of underground factory spitting out Gokou-cyborgs. Shit… we'd be screwed. Just ought to roll over and give up now, if that's the case…'
Turning left sharply, he came across the party he was looking for. Gokou --with both arms in their correct places, thank you Kami-sama-- leading, Vejiita and Piccolo flanking him. Piccolo was carrying Kaeru by her armpits, the woman hanging limply from his grasp. Her head hung forward slightly, cradled by her shoulders as she hung there. Kuririn circled around, beside Piccolo. "Gokou! We've got major trouble!"
They stopped dead, the Nameckjin adjusting his parcel to a more comfortable position. Kuririn continued. "We found some survivors, west of here. We'd taken them back to the caves by Muuri's, when we were attacked. No one was hurt… but… uhm…" He took a deep breath. "You were the one attacking, Gokou. A replica of you, or something. Juuhatchi-Gou figured out Buruma's gizmo. She said it was both human and non-human. Some sort of cyborg, she thinks, maybe made by Gero, a nuts idea I know, given that he's dead, but given the circumstances of my life, no one around here stays dead for very long." Catching himself on the rant, having said it all in one long sentence, he coughed, composing himself. "She's trailing it now."
"That explains it, then." Vejiita said sharply. "Gohan's strange behavior."
"A cyborg? Of me?"
"And me, apparently. And of Gohan as well." Piccolo grumbled, denying himself a glance at the woman in his arms.
"You guys have seen them?"
"Yeah. Well, Gohan, anyway. Kaeru was attacked by both Piccolo and Gohan. Gohan nearly killed her." Gokou crossed his arms, thinking. "If we would have had that thingy from Bururma, we could have tracked the others down."
"We should keep moving. Trunks and Goten are still in trouble. Along with Gohan and Videl." The Saiyajin Prince stated.
"I saw Gohan a while back. I figure he's trailing me, given that I didn't speak to him. Videl was there, too."
Gokou closed his eyes, mentally communicating with those missing. 'All of you be very careful. There are impostors roaming about. So far, we know of cyborgs that look like Gohan, Piccolo, and myself. Abandon the search for survivors. We need the Dragonballs. That's what these fakes are looking for. If you have any trouble, go Super Saiyajin. There is safety in numbers. Try to stick together.' The message over, he opened his eyes. Piccolo had started explaining to Kuririn what was wrong with Kaeru.
"She's lost a lot of blood…" He hadn't even gotten the sentence out, when Kuririn nearly squeaked. Recoiling as if bitten by the vampire, Kuririn backed away.
"There's plenty of bodies around here! Get her one of them! Leave my neck out of this!" He slapped both of his hands over his throat.
"I wasn't talking about you." Piccolo glared at Kuririn. "Let's go." Leading this time, carrying the unconscious Kaeru like she was a baby, he continued scanning the ground, for bodies and Dragonballs alike. 'Hold on, my people.' He found himself thinking, accompanied by the two other Nameckjin he shared his head with. Then it was his voice, alone in his skull. 'And you too, Kaeru. Hold on.'