Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Sing No Songs ❯ A sketchy tale ( Chapter 7 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Chapter seven

The sketchy tale left the company speechless. Beginnings of incredulous protests trailed off, reflecting broken beliefs.

Pan summed it up. “Let's not get paranoid, but there are enemies all around us.”

They were all gathered in the small chamber upstairs. Eleven persons all in all. Vegeta was there too, leaning against a wall. Gohan was sitting down, his chin resting on his hand. Newfound doubts made his thoughts heavy, the scenarios were all too vivid.

Pan's patch-work tale did not make much sense.

“Start at the beginning,” Gohan said.

“The ship wasn't very impressive, just big and gray, and smooth all over.” She absently ran her fingers through the hair of her children, one on each side of her. “A door opened to let us in. We met their captain, but we didn't get to talk for very long, because someone,” she gave Gohan a pointed stare, “practically dragged us away.”

“We learned something important, we needed time to think and someone,” he stared right back, “was at the edge of doing something quite rash.”

Her eyes glittered. “I'm sure a little demonstration of what they're up against would have made them think twice about the price they were willing to pay to `fulfill their mission'.”

“Right,” Gohan sighed. That's what I thought too. But things are not that simple anymore. Perhaps they never were. No matter how powerful, how could we defend ourselves from an attack we can't predict? How do we intercept a stone thrown from out of the darkness?

Which reminded him, “Goten, who did throw those stones?”

“No one important.” Goten drew a hand trough his hair and smiled, almost bashfully. He glanced nervously at the silent figure of Vegeta, but looked away when he was not acknowledged. “It was just a couple of guys who said they recognized Mr. Vegeta from the picture the aliens had sent. I think they worked for the CC.”

“Not much to worry about, perhaps, if it was only those two.”

Shattered illusions... or a glimpse of a map, a million stars like a frozen whirlwind of dust, spanning a majestic tranquillity. A pale hand pointing out this and this and this too, belong to The Galaxy. Do not think we will just go away, when we are all around you.

“So what did you do to them?” Gohan asked, breaking out of his reverie.

A mischievous tone entered Goten's voice. “I just... re-located them. They are standing in a small jungle village right now, probably wondering what happened.”

“And do you think that's the end of it?”

Goten paused to think, staring into the air with a considering look on his face. “No,” he said slowly. “If they know, others might too. Or they might tell someone. I suppose every government on Earth would be searching for...” A discreet nod at Vegeta, once again left unacknowledged. Tension-filled glances crossed the room.

The alien captain had hinted... no, he had told them outright, that this ship only was one of many. To defeat it would only send for more. And the next time there might be no warning, no respite.

Bra stood near the adjoining room where her mother rested on the narrow bed. Her stance was almost protective. A window had shattered with a kind of salacious ease. She remembered the rain of shards, the stain of mud left by the stone, but she called her anger useless. All Bulma needed now was a peaceful grave, perhaps next to an old tree, with long branches and leaves that would let the sun glimpse forth in brilliant flashes. Some flowers on the grave. A headstone, nothing fancy. A few words summing up the loss by those left behind: Mother. Wife.

Wouldn't it have been horrible if that silly stone had landed slightly different, if it had bruised her skin, if the stain on the sheets had been the color red? One would have thought we were safe. One would have thought that we should have been safer than anyone else.

Gohan thought about how the Earth looked from a distance. He had seen it as such, a blue orb, every detail so tiny, yet distinct, and you knew that if you got closer, more and more details would appear, till you imagined you could see every mountain and every tree. As more and more details appeared you realized the world was endless.

From space, however, the edges were definite. You could imagine reaching out to pluck the blue planet like some kind of cosmic apple.

We will be forced to eliminate him together with the planet he is presently residing.

He was standing unmoving against the wall, his eyes focused on the floor, somehow avoiding any ones attention, except for a few short glances in his direction. It was as if he was overlooked, or in some strange way unnoticed. Bra had come closest, when she earlier had reached out her arms for him, wanting to share their mutual grief. “Not now, brat,” he had muttered. It had been the unlikely alarm in the way he had recoiled from her, rather than his words, that had persuaded her to keep her distance.

Now Vegeta slowly raised his eyes and pushed himself away from the wall. Suddenly present, suddenly impossible to ignore. Gohan felt like he had overlooked something vital.

It's me they want.

They stared at him as if waiting for instructions, as if he could provide a solution to the whole situation. Instead, though, Vegeta seemed to gradually fall apart before their eyes. Tiny cracks appeared in his stony face, a twinge of pain quickly pulled at the corners of his mouth. For a second his features scrunched together, looking for all the world like he was on the verge of bursting into tears.

Then it was all wiped away, his face impassive once again. One could almost have thought it had all been an illusion.

“I would like to be alone with her.”

It was a long moment of silence, in which nobody moved. Then Trunks hastily stood up and, together with his wife, left the room. Slowly the others followed, leaving him alone.

Something made Gohan stop in the doorway to study Vegeta as he stood there in the middle of the room, abandoned by his own request.

“You're planning something, aren't you?”

Vegeta turned to face him, the smallest smile flitted over his countenance, leaving a strange sense of calmness behind.

“I trust you will stay here... boy? To protect this ball of mud and all that.”

“Of course,” Gohan said, a brittle realization slowly dawning. “I will protect the Earth with everything I have.”

He looked at the shorter man with considerable respect. He has to know, as well as I do, that there is only one way to make them leave the Earth alone. And that is if he was to go with them.

Gohan dared not ask again, but a sense of hopeful, shameful gratitude surged through him. I'm a rational man, but still I keep hoping for easy help from angels. He shook his head at this own straying thoughts. He wanted to say something to Vegeta, something that would ease his burden, but found that he could only share some of his own.

“It's something I haven't told the others yet, but when we were leaving the ship I stayed behind for a moment and asked the captain how they could be so certain that they would find you here.”

He paused and Vegeta looked at him expectantly.

“Yes?”

Gohan could not get over Vegeta's apparent serenity. In the absence of angels, he was the most unlikely substitute. Still...

“He said that they had been told that you were here... from one of the last survivors of New Namek.”Â Yes, and telling him did not make it any different. “Apparently, they had heard of the Dragonballs and decided that New Namek constituted a threat to their `Galaxy'. He said... that magic does not exist anymore. `It's the end of magic', that's what he said.”

Was he expecting some sort of reassurance? He got none.

“That sounds about right.” The expression on Vegeta's face was unreadable, but his words had a ring of resignation.

Don't you want to fight this, Vegeta? Don't you want to fight?

They exchanged a long look. Gohan took a breath to say something like `don't do this', but the image of the fragile blue planet held him back.

“I'll leave you alone with her.” There was no answer.

He closed the door on his protesting conscience. The answer was right there, after all. Only one way to make them leave...

---

Vegeta relaxed slightly when he was finally left alone. He walked to the room where Bulma lay. He did not look at her, his eyes went to the large rectangle of the window, all filled with a golden mist, mildly illuminating the room, making the edges of the shadows blur.

He was somewhat touched, that Gohan would trust him to this extent. He had recognized the silent agreement that had passed between them. It was up to him now to deal with this threat to the Earth.

“Of course, what the boy doesn't know is that I am probably the greatest threat right now.”

He felt a small dizziness as he turned his focus inward, a feeling like he was staring down an abyss. Watching the fortifications crumble... It held its fascination.

“You know,” he said in a low voice, talking to Bulma, the living Bulma in his memories. “I have dealt with this, somewhat successfully, for a long time. Don't think I have forgotten my promise to you,” his next words were a whisper, “but I'm not sure you will be proud of me, when this is over.”

He fell silent then, with a start. Talking to memories... when Bulma's listening corpse lay on the small bed not two metres away from him. He made himself look at her, but he did not say anything. He refused to feed her with words, to further acknowledge this body with any kind of sentiments. He had carried her in his arms up the stairs, and that had felt too real, too much like life.

This was not really her after all, it was just a corpse he was leaving behind. He knew that, and still he was drawn to the bed. He leaned down to her well-known face, seized by the maddest impulse. Why the need to say good-bye when he could bring something of her with him? Her hair perhaps, he could twine it between his fingers, a thousand soft strands. Rip them out! The image of it, in all of its simplicity, repelled him, and his reaching hand faltered in its purpose. He lightly stroked one white lock of hair, then his fingers closed instead around the pillow beneath. Her head bounced heavily against the mattress as he pulled it out.

Turning his back to her, he brought the pillow to his face and inhaled. Yes, this was the scent of Bulma still living in his memories; it made her clear, manifest, while her frozen features only spoke of finality and distance.

He walked to the window and pulled it open, one hand holding the white pillow against his chest, as if cherishing its warmth.

“I'm going now,” he murmured to no one in particular.