Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Garrulous and Gritless ❯ I, 31: Gohan ( Chapter 31 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

NOTE: This chapter is the end of Part I. Worry not—I don’t intend to take a break between this and Part II or anything. It will still be added to this story, so you don’t need to check my profile for anything else as far as this story goes. You can look forward to some new narrators (and some old ones), but that’s all I’m saying. ;)

Thanks yet again to everyone reading this story. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it thus far.

…  


Dad was right to send Yamcha away to warn Bulma. I…I hope she gets away okay. And…and maybe she can help Yamcha out, because…because…

Because things are bad, bad bad bad, and we haven’t even fought Freeza yet. He sits there looking all…smug and…people just keep…

First it was Tenshinhan—we all thought for sure he could take on this purple guy with funny little things like Piccolo’s antennas coming out by his mouth—but then bam and—and then he had a big hole through him like…like Dad did when…Raditz killed him. I shake the thoughts about that out of my head because I really really don’t want to think of Dad dying because that can’t happen and it won’t happen, ‘cause if he dies then…

…after Tenshinhan died, Chaotzu got so angry and sad and even though we kept telling him he shouldn’t fight because he’s for sure not strong enough, he leapt in and, and, exploded…

When Raditz said something really mean about him (which was an awful thing to do, calling him weak just for loving his friend so much that he died for him…but we all knew he shouldn’t have gone in there…I don’t know, I guess Dad knew that that was what he had to do, and that’s why he didn’t catch him on his way in)—when—after Raditz said the mean thing, Yamcha was so furious at him and took it kind of personally and went in after the purple guy himself.

I don’t think we would have stuck around if we knew how bad it would’ve been. Maybe if we would’ve known from the start, Bulma would’ve built a bigger ship. We could’ve…all ran away and…and trained for a long, long time, and then came back and faced this Freeza guy. But I guess he must know where Namek is and what if all the people like Piccolo and Dende get killed? If we don’t stop him…

When Yamcha got so mad he charged in himself and he did give the purple guy a real good match, and if it wasn’t so scary it woulda been exciting to watch…but then the purple guy just about killed Yamcha the same way he did Tenshinhan. Yamcha got even angrier and he was all revved up and then he was using that Kaio-ken my dad taught him, and it was like fire was sucking him up but it wasn’t enough, and then more fire sucked him up, and there was a huge blast and the purple guy was just gone like he got turned into dust. Another guy, with hair that kind of makes me think of spinach because of its color, got a little hurt and he was screaming about his face getting messed up. He was right about to really hurt Yamcha, or maybe even kill him, ‘cause Yamcha sure couldn’t move, but then Dad was right there socking the guy and Kuririn picked Yamcha up real carefully and brought him back to where I was before going back and helping Dad.

Dad shouted up to Yamcha to leave if he could fly, and have one of us take him or else, and he said tell Bulma to get away. And Yamcha could still fly, and Freeza’s people didn’t seem like they really cared about him since he was pretty much almost dead anyway and they were pretty distracted by this disk Kuririn made that can slice things up, and some of them got sliced up, so he got away okay. Before I looked back at Yamcha I saw Freeza looking pretty thoughtful and like maybe for just half a second he was worried, but I couldn’t tell if he was looking at Dad or at the disk or what just then.

And when I looked back to Yamcha disappearing in the sky I saw that Raditz was also facing toward Yamcha and looked real worried—not angry, like Dad was when Yamcha was getting hurt so much, or when Tenshinhan died, but really just…sad. Then he looked back at me and it was like he noticed that he looked sad and his face kind of got like glass and he just ruffled his hand in my hair. He said to me, “It’ll be okay, kid.” And then a little quieter he also said, “You do the Saiyans proud.” And then it was like he was just talking to himself because it was so soft, like he sort of hoped I wouldn’t hear, “You do me proud.”

Piccolo said that to me too, a few days ago. About him being proud, I mean—not about the Saiyans. Hearing it makes me…shiver, I guess. Like it means something extra. I don’t know what.

And now the disk is still slicing through the air and most of Freeza’s guys are shaking in their boots (that’s how Raditz says ‘scared’). Dad and Piccolo are doing a pretty good job of keeping clear of the disk while they fight the green-haired one, who was worried about his face.

Raditz even looks scared. He says that last time he saw these guys, they could squish him in half a second and it’s tough for him to think he might even be able to hold his own against some of them, like how Dad and Piccolo are doing. I would be in there too but Dad made me swear that I’d wait until he let me. I get the feeling he won’t, but I’ll jump in if I have to, to save Piccolo…but if I do it right now, he’ll just knock me out and tell Raditz or somebody to take me back to Bulma’s too, and ship me into space and then Piccolo will…well, no, he won’t…no. No. I’m not gonna let it happen and he’s too strong. Too strong to just have…a hole put through him, or…or to get blown up. He said sometimes he can get back from those things okay but if the hole is too bad or if it goes through the right spot or if he gets blown into little bits he can’t make himself grow back. Growing back is a neat power…I wonder if all Namekians can do it or if it’s just something special Piccolo learned how to do.

Dad told Raditz to stay here and watch me, too, for now. I think maybe partly he thinks Raditz is still with these guys, or something, and he wants to be able to keep an eye on him, because he swore to me that if I powered up all of a sudden and I was still by Raditz, he’d be right there to save me. I think if I powered up all of a sudden he’d be there no matter what, but for some reason he just mentioned Raditz.

I don’t think Dad knows how much me and Raditz care about each other or he’d never say something like that. That would be like if he thought that Kuririn was going to hurt me. I don’t get it…even way back when Piccolo took me away to train me he trusted Piccolo to not hurt me too bad.

“What do you know about the green-hair guy?” I ask Raditz.

“His name is Zarbon,” Raditz says, and it looks like he’s in a little pain just thinking about him. “There’s a reason he’s always standing by Freeza—he’s strong.”

This Zarbon guy right now is dodging past all of the punches Piccolo is throwing but then he’s not expecting a blast from my dad. Then he tries to wipe the dust off of him but whoosh, out of nowhere comes Kuririn’s disk. Zarbon ducks down but only just in time, and his cape and his braid trail behind. The disk slices right through his cape, then right into his braid partway down.

I guess he really liked his braid because he’s screaming, screams that make me a little shaky and Raditz is putting an arm around my shoulders and I’m not sure if it’s to make me feel better or because his knees are shaking too because boom, Zarbon’s power goes right through the roof and his scream gets awful and like pebbles grinding into concrete, and he’s suddenly much bigger and much scarier.

He knows right where the disk came from and he leaps so fast I can barely keep track of him. He leaps over to Kuririn, and grabs his head, and shakes him around, screaming and screaming and Raditz is swearing under his breath and swearing and swearing at Zarbon or himself or somebody and Zarbon shouts and yells and it’s all so loud, but I look at Raditz and it’s like all he can see is where Zarbon’s hair got sliced off and where Zarbon’s hand is and where my Dad is, fighting back somebody big and pink to try to get to Kuririn. All I can hear all the screaming but with his eyes so glazed-over and glassy it’s like all Raditz can hear is the swishing and the squeezing and whispers instead of yelling—like his eyes are windows you can’t shout through, only see through, like even if I was shouting he wouldn’t notice. Like how everything slows down when stuff goes bad.

By now Zarbon’s fingernails are digging against Kuririn’s head and it’s really really painful to look at, but I can’t get Raditz’s face out of my head and I think things are going to get worse. Dad finally gets the pink guy trapped and Piccolo shoots a beam at him that does him away, and I watch as they both turn around to look at Kuririn, and I see their faces change only just before I hear a noise.

An awful, awful noise. A noise that I think is never gonna leave my head.

Crunch.

Like breaking an arm but worse. Like squashing a bug, but louder.

And then a lot of cackling. Freeza just laughing and laughing. Like he saw something funny.

Like it doesn’t bother him the littlest bit that my Dad’s best friend’s head got squished by Zarbon.

Then there’s a blur, and everything is going so much faster. Dad is by Zarbon. Dad is shouting, “Kaio-ken!” With numbers, more numbers. Two, three, five. Ten. Piccolo stares like he sees death and charges another beam. I feel my head deciding whether to spring in, and every single one of my muscles getting ready, one by one, snapping into place and stretching and pulling, my toes curling through my boots and my shoulders swinging Raditz’s hand off.

Then Zarbon is dead and somehow I missed how, like Dad and Piccolo were too quick for me to see in that moment I spent feeling my muscles.

“What a shame!” Freeza yells. He’s still laughing but he sounds nervous. There are still some guys around him, but they’re weak. Easy to kill. Easy to… “I so enjoyed Zarbon’s company. What a monster you are to take him from me. Tsk, tsk.” More laughing, like saying that makes Freeza feel better. “I’ll need new pets, you know. Somebody new to stand by me and say the awful, nasty things I don’t want to.” He must be joking. He’s the one saying the awful, nasty things.

“In fact,” Freeza continues, “you two would do just fine.” He’s saying it to Dad and Piccolo. No. No.

Dad’s about to say something but Freeza cuts in again. “Then again,” the air is thick, “I think the both of you might just try to band together and fight me, and that would be such an inconvenience. Hm,” he ponders something and my muscles get tighter. My blood gets hotter. I can see Raditz reaching out for me but it happens so slowly that I can just step out of the way. My step happens slowly too, but I’m still too fast for him. “I’ll just have to pick one of you. Ah!” and it seems like he’s gonna say something else but he doesn’t.

It’s totally silent and I wonder if my eyes are glass.

The air blows up. It pulls in for a second and then gets so hot it all shoots out to try to get away from itself. And the noise is loud. It’s like lightning and thunder, without the electricity. Wind blows past me, but by then I’m blowing past it just as fast.

Because where the air pulled in is where Piccolo was and he’s gone.

A million little pieces.

Freeza is laughing but I can’t hear it past the blood pumping through my ears, hotter and hotter and hotter, and this is just like when my tail started aching but I have no tail so the lava in my insides flows freer and faster and everything and everybody gets slower. Everything is wavy around me, heat jumping out of me into the air, more and more and more, like the Kaio-ken but different because my skin isn’t burning like Yamcha’s did and it comes from someplace different, from my gut and not from my chest like Dad described it but I don’t know if it’s enough because Freeza catches my eye in regular-time, not slow-time like everything else.

He stops laughing and I think he might move out of the way faster than I can get there, and there’s nothing, nothing more important than this so I close my eyes tight (red, all red, all fiery yellow-orange-red underneath, burning me, burning every little bit) and I shout, “Kaio-ken!” and there’s the other heat, the different heat, and now the burning in the deeper parts of me is on the surface too, and everything is on fire.

I shout Piccolo’s name and it’s like it gives me more power too—all of me tingling, everything lighter, everything faster, like every bit of me disappeared besides my pulse and the fire that I started feeling the second I noticed he was dead.

Freeza mouths something and stands, and gets ready to fight back, and I’m not ready for the world to be slow around not just me but also him. He’s right there, then he’s right behind me, grabbing me through the burning air and turning my head just a bit to the side—there’s Raditz, gaping, then, slowly, leaping up, away, the way Yamcha went, and his words reach me too slow for me to understand them and even if I did I couldn’t answer because Freeza’s hands get tight and I feel my neck jerking fast, around, too far, all the way around, and I—





END Part I


Converting /tmp/phpeKXv9w to /dev/stdout