Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Slumber Party! ❯ Fire Burns, Trouble Brews ( Chapter 25 )

Piccolo had felt his namekian blood run cold when he'd seen the emptiness reflected back at him from his love's eyes and had turned towards the person he knew was to blame with the only thought seething in his mind to reck havoc in the name of vengence and would have directed that simmering rage in the form of a ki blast straight at the half-stting, half-reclining figure before him had Terra's glowing green orb-topped staff not been jammed suddenly in his path.

"No, Piccolo." Terra's soft, melodious voice said quietly near his ear, "If you kill him he cannot restore Tori to her normal self. Only he can end the trance and bring her back."

Piccolo glared at Cyclone as the young man, knowing he was saved, smirked arrogantly back at him. Growling, his fists trembling as he lowered them and the forming ki ball dissipated, the powerful namek said; "He better fix her, Terra," He did not take his black-eyed glare from Terra's brother, "Or your brother or not, he's dead."

Tori, her blue eyes wide and unseeing, sat propped up in a corner of the room, some inner piece of her, some part not touched by Cyclone's hypnotic stare cried and cried for someone to help her, to get her out of this horrid darkness which was enclosing her like a dream she could not outrun.

In a desperate effort to fight her way out, Tori had instictively reacted with the only thing that brought her even a tiny shred of comfort and security, her fire power, so to speak.

Tori was burning from the inside out. Without meaning to, she'd tried to focus on a target, something outside herself, but trapped as she was by Cyclone's powerful mental barbed wire she could not attack anything outside of herself, he had set herself on fire. Her skin burned and bubbbled as the fire ate at her hungily and englufed her in flames which exploded from her very pores.

Within herself, she screamed in agony as the inferno licked across her flesh and consumed her clothing in bursts of orange and red licks of fire. She heard Terra scream and Piccolo gasp and felt the rush of cool liquid wash over her as they tried desperately to extiguish her burning body.

"Tori! No!" Piccolo cried, as another bucket of water appeared in his hands and he threw the water onto the girl who had turned her own power against herself! Why? He asked himself, why did she do that? It was his fault! He had to be! He thought as he saw Terra, from the corner of his eye, point her orb at the ground and the carpet rose up to cover Tori and smother the last of the flames beneath it's weight.

Kneeling down, Piccolo cupped Tori's face in his hands and stared into her eyes, trying, by force of will alone, to summon her to her concious self. He shook her shoulders and pulled her into his embrace, crushing her to him and feeling her heart beating steadily beneath his own rapidly beating one.

He felt as helpless to aide her as he had been he'd been imprisioned inside of Cylcone's water cell. There was nothing more he hated in this world that to feel helpless when those he cared for more than anything needed him!

How powerful she is! Cylcone mused to himself as he watched Piccolo holding her and his own sister looking at him with shame and fear, If she'd have joined me when I'd asked none of this would have been nessessary. She would not have had to go through this…discomfort.

Ah, well, with the dragonballs I will have no need of her, of my foolish simpering sister and least of all, that idiotic relic Terra so desires. He paused in his thinking to look at his sister and his heart softened a bit, But she is my flesh. I will find her the relic myself and make sure she is healed. Then I will part from her for good, my duty to her having been fullfilled.

He lay back down, tired and felt his body continueing to heal itself under his half-focused direction. He'd been in fights before and had healed himself past the brink of death, he no longer needed full consentration on his mending to do the job.

But, still, his mind and body felt that rest was needed and he closed his eyes, not fearing the angry green warrior as long as he knew that he must not be killed lest his girlfriend become a vegetable who was an occational fire hazard.

~*~*~

"I can't believe we found the seventh dragonball all ready, Chi Chi!" Goku exclaimed as he sat on the side of the motel bed he'd shared with his wife last night. Chi Chi was going through the dressers, taking out the clothing she'd carefully folded and placed there a few nights ago and packing up their suitcases once more.

Goku bounced child-like on the side of the bed. She murmered under her breath, involved in her task, "I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, considering we're with Bulma! If anyone could be said to have a knack for finding dragonballs that person would have be her! Don't you…"

Goku stopped his chatter so suddenly that Chi Chi looked up from her folding and gasped at how pale her husband's normally robust face had become under his shock of dark, unkempt hair. She ran to him and bent down, holding his shoulders and shaking, crying; "Goku! Goku, what is it? What's wrong?"

"Something…something's happened!" He got out, finally, "We have to return home! Now!"

"But..."

"Now, Chi Chi!" The saiyan shoved her away, without meaning to, and rose to his feet, "There's going to be trouble."

~*~*~

It's about time that idiot received my message, he thought as he floated above the house, nearly invisable against the darkness of the late night sky, It's hard getting through to a brain filled with mush! I hope he gets here soon with the others. I need to get the other Z fighters here soon, too!

Piccolo knew that they would need all the help they could get if what his instincts told him were correct. Because he had the feeling, the gut feeling, that even if, not if, dammit, when, he corrected himsef, when Cyclone restores Tori he won't be done with them. The horrible images he'd seen in his mind during his recent meditations did not bode well for them at all.

"I can't let him near the dragonballs!" He said to himself, remembering one very vivid image of Cyclone before the assembled orange-starred balls clumsily stumbling throught the summoning rite and asking the dragon what was the typical wish of any ego-maniac; Mainly, that of power, great power.

If such a thing ever came to pass, and he shuddered at the thought, at least they wouldn't have to worry about that power corrupting him. Cyclone had all ready done a pretty decent job himself where that was concerned!

There was no way Piccolo was even going to allow him that chance, however!