Disclaimer: Okay, you know how these things go; I don't own DBZ, and I never will. I'm just borrowing a few of the characters for a while.

The Burden of Hope

CHAPTER SIX: A Lone Child; The Android Assault!

Blast it, where had that kid run off to? Gohan cursed his lack of attentiveness as his eyes darted about in a frantic attempt to find Trunks; he had no idea how long he'd been lost in his memories, so there was no telling how far the toddler could have wandered. Hadn't Bulma taught the kid how to sit still?

Taking a deep, quivering breath and running a hand through his dark hair, Gohan forced himself to calm down. Really, it was no big deal. Trunks' ki was easily recognizable; it was a simple matter to locate it, and then everything would be fine. He was worrying over nothing.

He opened his senses, feeling for Trunks' distinctive ki signature. At first, he could sense nothing but a few animals and a large grouping of humans. Casting himself out further, he at last felt a strong ki pulsing through the air. Gohan let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Trunks was in the city. Why he was there was a thing beyond the older boy's comprehension, but at least the problem could be solved now.

Gohan was about to leap into the sky, when he was met with a sight that turned his blood to ice. A massive explosion rocked a portion of the city, sending a cloud of smoke mushrooming into the heavens. With frightening certainty, he knew that only one thing could possibly be happening.

"No," he whispered softly, staring in horror. "Not now. Not here." Convulsively, his fists clenched; his eyes narrowed in anger. "That baka kid is going to get himself killed!"

Without another thought, Gohan violently blasted into the sky, completely destroying several feet of the landscape in the process, and streaked toward the city, enveloped in golden fire.

Trunks ambled down the street, carefully weaving through the legs of all of the big people. He was occasionally unsuccessful, and bumped into a person or two; whenever he did, he would meekly apologize---his mother had taught him to always say he was sorry after he did something rude---but the person usually gave him a mean look, causing him to scamper away.

After a while, he leaned his back against the wall of a tall building, sliding down until he was sitting. He'd been walking for a long time; his legs hurt, so he needed to rest.

As he watched the city's residents stroll by, chatting casually, he brushed a few errant strands of lavender hair out of his eyes---an old habit. He drew his knees up to his small chest, and wrapped his slender arms around them. He was starting to feel a little afraid; he'd never been on his own before. The city was a scary place for a four-year-old to be alone.

Trunks was starting to regret leaving Gohan-san. At first a little afraid of him, the child had grown comfortable around and felt safe with him. Not as comfortable and safe as he felt around his mother, but still… Anyway, it was too late to turn back now; he didn't know how to get back to him. Besides, Trunks had gotten the feeling that Gohan-san would be happier without him around. The older boy wasn't as nice as he'd been told; he was never mean, but he got snappish. Trunks figured that it was all his own fault; some of his questions had seemed to upset Gohan-san. Especially his last one---only Gohan-san had gotten sad instead of snappish. Feeling terrible about this, Trunks had decided to leave the older boy to himself and had carefully slipped away into the city to look for his mother; at the age of four, he had no idea that this was not the place that he called home. All he knew was that he lived in a big city, and he was in one right now.

A chilly wind assaulted Trunks, and he hugged himself more tightly. From under his pale eyebrows, he observed the people walking by, completely ignoring him; the cars zooming past, the noise of their engines rising with their approach and fading with their departure; and the twisted maze of streets and alleyways, confounding his attempts to get home. The child was starting to feel terribly frightened and lonely. He wanted Gohan-san. He wanted his mother. And he wanted them now.

Trunks felt tears prick his eyes, and he blinked them back. He wasn't going to let himself cry. Only babies cried when they were scared, and he wasn't going to be a baby anymore. He had to be a big boy now. Like Gohan-san. He never cried; he was too brave. That's what Trunks decided he was going to be. Brave.

Eventually, he stood and stretched his arms and legs. Not bothering to wipe the dirt of his pants---a person got used to the weight of dirt on his clothes after spending a week in the woods---he glanced around, deciding which direction to try next. Part of him thought about asking a grownup for help, but he instantly pushed aside that idea; he'd gotten a few mean looks from them earlier, which only served to intensify his natural shyness. No, he would do this himself, just like a big boy would.

Before Trunks could take a step, the ground beneath him jumped, causing him to lose his footing; he barely managed to catch himself with his hands in time to stop his face from hitting the pavement. He looked up as people screamed, and saw them pointing at something. Curious, the child sat up on his knees, turned his head in the direction people were pointing---and froze.

A huge cloud of thick black smoke rose high into the air, spitting out flaming chunks of concrete. Bright yellow flashes lit the sky. Nearby buildings exploded into millions of pieces… and the explosions grew closer with each passing moment.

Pure panic erupted around Trunks; people shrieked and ran in a twisted array of conflicting paths. Those who were stronger pushed past those who were weaker, leaving them as vulnerable as lame deer surrounded by a pack of hungry wolves. Several times, Trunks was nearly trampled; the only action he could bring himself to take was to huddle against the wall, eyes locked with terrified fascination on the destruction being wrought upon the city.

It's the bad robots. They're hurting people again, he thought fearfully, an unnatural chill sweeping through him. Where's Gohan-san? If he was here, he'd help me just like before. He'd help everybody so the bad robots wouldn't get them.

A block or so away, a beam of light sliced neatly through a large domed building, raining down a crushing doom on anyone unfortunate enough to be inside. This jarred Trunks from his paralysis, and he broke into a run. He needed to find someplace to hide, and he needed to do it fast. And as much as he hated it, neither his mother nor Gohan-san was here to help him find a safe spot; he would have to do it himself. Like he'd told himself before, he had to be a big boy.

Trying to move along with the terrified crowds proved to be a very difficult task; Trunks could not duck through one pair of legs without running smack into another. He was pressed in so tightly that the smallest false step in any direction caused him to bump into someone. More tense than before, he tried to slow his rapid breathing. Being closed in made him nervous; he'd spent his life in the Capsule Corporation facility---which was anything but small---and the past week out in the wilderness. Small spaces were unnatural to him.

In a dissonant chorus of screams and gasps, the herd of people stopped cold, leaving Trunks helpless to halt himself before his momentum carried him smartly into the legs of someone in front of him. Luckily, he was in such close quarters that he hadn't enough room to fall. He was confused, though. Why had everybody stopped running all of a sudden? He could still hear horrified shrieks, so it was pretty clear that the bad robots hadn't left yet. What in the world was going on?

"My, my, my. What poor hosts you humans are. Is it too much to ask that you be polite enough not to try to run out on your guests?" came a voice from the front of the crowd, as smooth and as cold as a sheet of ice. Fear chilled Trunk's blood; he knew that voice. It belonged to the bad boy-robot.

"And the stares are just plain rude. Haven't you been taught to have better manners in the presence of a lady? I'm insulted," another voice, sharper and just as frigid, said from behind. Trunks swallowed an enormous lump of terror. The bad lady-robot. "So, Seventeen, should we punish them for being so impolite?"

A bright light flashed from the front of the group; Trunks jammed the heels of his hands into his sensitive ears in a vain attempt to shut out the hideous wails of agony that rose into the air. "Of course," came the reply, amid gasps of dread. "Such rudeness is not something to be tolerated."

"I agree."

Trunks squeezed his eyes shut as awful cries of pain rang out again. He felt a rush of wind pass over his hair; startled, he snapped his eyes open… and gasped as he saw that many of the people in front of him were now lying on the ground, smoke rising from holes punched through their bodies at just above waist height. Others were on their knees, clutching forearms that had nearly blown off, but steadily oozed blood instead. The only thing that had protected him from injury was his small stature.

Crying with fear now, Trunks began to run again, pumping his legs as hard as he could. Panic had broken anew, and it took a great deal of effort to make any headway in the frantic sea of legs. Time and again, he was bumped and jostled, but he didn't care. He wanted to get away. Far, far, away. He wanted to get to a place where there were no bad robots and everybody was happy and safe.

Something solid struck a glancing blow on his forehead and he felt another rush of wind just in front of him; yelping in pain, Trunks tumbled to the ground. Instinctively, he covered his head with his hands as people's feet swarmed around him like frantic bees. He desperately wanted to get up, but could not; there simply wasn't enough room. All he could do was curl himself into a tight little ball and wait for the crowd to pass.

He didn't realize it right away when it did; he remained in the defensive position for an extra moment before cautiously uncurling his body and slowly getting to his feet. Feeling his forehead throb dully, Trunks reached up and gently prodded it with his fingers; he winced as he touched a tender spot over his right eye.

You can't worry about that now, baka! he mentally screamed at himself. You've got to get away!

Giving a single nod in firm agreement with his thoughts, he forced himself to look brave as he tried to decide which direction to go in. Upon turning his head to the left, he knew instantly that that was no the way to go.

The bad boy-robot stood there, holding a lady by her neck. As Trunks watched in fixated horror, the bad boy-robot plunged his free arm into… and though the lady's stomach until his entire forearm stuck out her back, thickly covered in dripping blood. Slowly, he slid his arm backward, raised it a bit, and shot it forward again. He repeated this several times; the lady screamed endlessly, but over this horrible sound, Trunks heard something far more chilling.

The bad boy-robot was laughing. Laughing. Trunks could not understand this. How could anybody laugh when they were hurting someone? It didn't make any sense. His mother had always told him that the bad robots hurt people for no reason, but she'd never said that they liked doing it. Yet here they were, playing with their victims the way that Trunks played with his toys, then throwing them away when they weren't fun anymore.

A loud boom and a horrid melody of screams rose into the air; Trunks whipped his head toward the noise in time to see people flung through the air in all directions, some smashing into walls, and others slamming onto the pavement. With a startled gasp, Trunks leapt back a bit as one body landed just in front of him. The body was that of a boy not much older than he, and thin, with short black hair. The dark-haired boy was not moving, but his face was all scrunched up as if he were in pain. Blood leaked slowly from the back of his head in a narrow crimson river. Suddenly feeling like he was going to be sick, Trunks looked up to see the bad lady-robot standing not very far away, with her back to him.

Hide. Hide! HIDE! his mind screamed in time with his wildly beating heart, so loudly that for a second he feared he might go deaf. Now! While the bad robots aren't looking!

Eyes wide with pure terror, he looked around desperately for someplace, anyplace, that might be safe; fearful whimpers escaped his slightly parted lips. He had to hurry; he didn't have much time.

Something like relief calmed him just a bit as he caught sight of his best chance; quickly making sure that neither of the bad robots was watching, he raced forward, pumping his legs harder than he had ever before in his life, and dove under a truck that was parked on the other side of the street.

The shadows that met his eyes were a more than welcome change from the awful sights he had just seen. The child crawled forward a bit until he was certain that he was totally hidden, and then stopped, breathing heavily. Making himself as small as he possibly could, he squeezed his eyes shut, feeling horribly alone. Waterfalls of tears flowed down his cheeks as he listened to the sounds of destruction: huge explosions, crumbling buildings, and agonized cries.

He just didn't get it. How could anybody make monsters like the bad robots? What kind of person made things just to hurt other people? It was wrong. Horribly, terribly wrong. Everybody knew that. Even Trunks, who at four years old didn't know a whole lot, knew that much. It was impossible to imagine how somebody couldn't.

Slowly, the noises began to die away, though they remained present. Encouraged by this nonetheless, Trunks opened his eyes… and nearly choked; two pairs of feet, one in brown boots and the other in blue shoes with green socks sticking out of them, stood right beside his hiding spot. He remembered the boots very well; the bad lady-robot had been wearing them on the day she'd tried to get him. That the shoes and socks were being worn by the bad boy-robot was an easy guess to make.

Trunks began to quiver like a warm-weather animal that had somehow gotten lost in the arctic, and bit his lip to keep himself from crying out in fear; his heart beat against his ribs as furiously as the wings of a caged hummingbird. What was he going to do if they found him here?

He heard a heavy grunt, followed first by a strange gurgling sound, then by a light thud. Pressing his teeth so hard into his lip that he drew blood, he stubbornly kept still and silent.

Be brave, Trunks, he told himself in his mind, over and over again. Be brave.

"Hey!" he heard the bad lady-robot say in an angry voice. "That one was mine, Seventeen! That's not fair!"

"It isn't my fault that you moved too slowly," the bad boy-robot returned smoothly. "You snooze, you lose, Eighteen. Don't blame me."

The bad lady-robot growled. "Don't blame you? You've been hogging all of the fun all day, just like you always do!"

Another explosion rocked the earth under Trunks, who promptly tried to curl up even more tightly. "Then you'd think you'd be used to it by now."

"Man, the things I put up with out of you!" the bad lady-robot sighed disgustedly. Her legs slowly rose out of Trunks' vision. "Come and get me when you're ready to leave; I'm going to find my own fun in this place!"

Trunks heard a whooshing sound, and guessed that the bad lady-robot had flown off somewhere; he then heard the bad boy-robot mutter, "Sisters."

Even though only one of the bad robots was still around, Trunks didn't feel much safer. Each of the bad robots was enough trouble on its own. He wished that Gohan-san were here; then he would feel safe. Gohan-san would protect him.

"Now where did everybody go?" the bad boy-robot called out playfully. "Yoo-hoo! Come out, come out, wherever you are!" An eerie silence followed. "All right, then. I guess I'll have to make you come out."

Trunks flinched as the explosions started again, one directly after another in a brightly flickering chain of destruction. Frightened by the blasts, people screamed out from their hiding places. Tiny chunks of concrete skittered under the truck.

Through it all, the only things that Trunks could do were squeeze his eyes shut, press his face against the rough pavement, and pray with all his might to be invisible.

Gohan stopped in midair, high above the city that now looked like the site of a monstrous giant's small cooking fire. Flames merrily chased each other from building to building in an infernal game of tag that had no winners. Skyscrapers---those of them that were standing---blazed like torches, lurid warning lights to all that may come near.

Even at his altitude, Gohan had to struggle to breathe in the heat rising from the burning metropolis. A heavy cloud of smoke rolled over him, drawing tears from his eyes and coughs from his throat. He levitated himself above the cloud to clear his lungs and wipe his eyes. Blinking, he refocused his gaze.

Finding Trunks in this mess was proving more difficult than he'd thought; it had been necessary for Gohan to take several detours in order to avoid being spotted by the androids. Added to that were the disorienting effects of the combination of suffocating heat, blinding smoke, and falling debris; Gohan had given up counting how many times he'd lost track of Trunks' ki and had to gather himself again. This was another one of those times. Frustrated didn't even begin to describe how he was feeling right now.

Blast it, Trunks, what were you thinking, coming here? he thought furiously, glaring through his golden aura at the destruction down below. I told you that it wasn't safe to be in a city! Haven't you listened to a word I've said?

Gohan shook his head; now was no time to curse the kid. He just needed to find him. Closing his eyes, he took in a breath far more exquisite than the ones he'd had in the past while and cast his senses outward, orienting on the last place he'd felt Trunks' ki.

It wasn't there. This didn't concern Gohan terribly, as the toddler's ki had been moving at a fairly steady rate throughout the entire search; that fact had been encouraging, for it meant that Trunks was alive and unharmed. Undeterred, Gohan cast himself out further.

Still nothing. His eyes snapped open as worry began to flutter in his chest; there was no way that Trunks could have travelled very far since the last time he'd sensed him. There was simply no way. The flutter of worry in his chest rose to become a lump of fear in his throat, and he swallowed it, hard; the anger in his aquamarine eyes had been washed away by a flood of concern. He couldn't feel Trunks' ki anywhere. Could the child be…

No. No! he screamed mentally, tightly clenching his fists and baring his teeth. It's just me, like always. Trunks is out there! He is! I'm just not concentrating hard enough!

Gohan narrowed his search, intensifying the focus. For several seconds, he felt nothing… but then exhaled in relief as he picked up the familiar throb of Trunks' ki; it wasn't far from the toddler's last location. How could he have missed it before?

The realization struck him abruptly, and he gasped; Trunks' ki was much lower than it should have been: about as weak as a normal human's. Gohan suppressed a shudder at the thought of what kind of injuries would cause the child's power to decrease so drastically.

"You have no idea how lucky you are that I'm around to bail you out, kid," he said aloud before racing toward the toddler's ki. As he did so, he muttered one more sentence, under his breath.

"Don't you dare die on me!"

"Ughh! Hideous!" Android Eighteen spat disgustedly, tossing aside a pale blue sweater. She turned and sifted through the clothing rack that stood next to her, critically eying each garment. Stopping at one that passed the initial inspection, she pulled it off the rack. "Maybe this one…"

She turned back to the full-length mirror, pressing the item of clothing against her body to see how it would look on her. It was a sleeveless dark green dress, designed to be close-fitting on a slender frame like her own, with long slits up the sides that stopped at about mid-thigh. Cocking her head to one side, Eighteen assessed how it altered her appearance.

After a moment, she dropped it, frowning distastefully. "No. I don't think so. Whoever would wear these clothes needs to have their optic sensors checked."

Thoroughly unsatisfied, she exited the abandoned and half-destroyed clothing store. What a waste of time that had been---honestly, the things these humans thought passed for fashion. Eighteen sighed heavily, placing her hands on her hips. Today was such a bust; Seventeen stole all her fun and this wretched city couldn't provide even one decent new outfit as compensation.

She was about to track down her brother and drag him away from this boring city by his scarf if she had to, when something in the sky caught her attention: a golden streak, moving to deliberately to be a windblown line of flame. Upon realizing what it really was, she grinned wickedly. "Well, look who's here!"

Chuckling softly, she tucked a few stray strands of hair behind her ear, and took off after the golden streak. Seventeen was going to be so jealous when she told him about this.

It seemed that she was going to have the most fun today, after all.

A suffocating wave of heat assaulted Gohan's lungs, forcing him yet again to lift himself upward to cooler, fresher air; he breathed it in large gulps, determined not to stop for very long. If Trunks really was as badly hurt as his weakened ki suggested, he didn't want to waste any time in getting to him. Shaking his head to dispel a hint of dizziness, he gathered himself to shoot forward---

"Well, hello there."

Startled, he whipped around to face the owner of the low, yet distinctly feminine voice that had just spoken, already knowing whom it was. It seemed strange that a voice more sultry than the air below could come out of someone whose face was as cold as it was beautiful, but these qualities were flawlessly combined in Android Eighteen, who floated a mere few feet away from him, smiling. Tensing, Gohan resisted the urge to gulp.

This was all he needed.