Disclaimer: Do people even read these things anymore after so many chapters? It's got to be painfully obvious by now that I don't own DBZ.

The Burden of Hope

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Centre of the Storm; Home is on the Horizon

Gohan desperately threw up a ki-shield---albeit a weak one---as beams of pseudo-ki rocketed to the ground like an earthbound meteor storm. The ground beneath him jumped and quaked, and the sounds of explosions roared in his ears.

The ki-shield's protection, however, was short-lived; after a moment of intense bombardment, it crumbled, too feeble a construct to hold under the assault, and Gohan could do nothing except vainly try to roll out of the way. There was a bright flash, then and instant of terrible pain, and he wasn't sure if he screamed or not…

Stillness, now, accompanied by darkness. He was aware of pain, but he felt it only distantly, as though he knew his body should be there but for some reason it wasn't; still, it was the only thing he could feel---or see, or hear, for that matter---and so he held onto it, as though it were his sole anchor to the world. He wouldn't have been surprised if it were, for though he was unsure if he were actually awake or not, he had the distinct feeling that he was still alive, and not by much.

But he didn't have the energy to be relieved by that fact. No, all of his thoughts became focused upon one thing; what that thing happened to be was unclear at this moment, but gradually crystallized as his muddled mind slowly drifted toward what he assumed was consciousness.

Trunks… That was the thought. The only thing that mattered enough to enter his drowsy brain.

The pain was no longer distant; it slammed into Gohan full-force, eliciting a groan. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to ignore the agony. He needed something that could draw his attention away from it so that he could bring himself to stand; he had to find Trunks. No matter what may have happened to the kid, he needed to find him. He had to know.

His sense of hearing returned before he was able to move, and picked up the sound of two voices---ones that he vaguely recognized as belonging to the androids---which gave the impression of a heated argument.

"You just couldn't resist, could you?" came the first voice, that of Android Seventeen.

"Hey, I told you I couldn't promise anything!" Android Eighteen snapped.

"You could have played with him a little longer! I'd have been able to get a little fun in, too, that way!"

"It isn't my fault that you took so long with the puny brat! What's the matter? Was he a bit too tough for you?" Mocking laughter punctuated the last statement.

"Too tough for me? Have you got your wires crossed? The day some pathetic runt gives me any trouble…"

The argument continued in the same tone, and it had taken Gohan a moment to realize that he and Trunks were the topics of debate. His heart started to sink; from what he'd heard, it seemed as though the kid hadn't managed to escape.

No. He wasn't going to allow himself to think that way. The idea that Trunks was dead was only a supposition; Gohan really didn't have any proof, only a statement that left some room, however small, to be misinterpreted. Desperately, he latched onto that rationalization. Trunks was probably fine, had probably found some way to slip away unnoticed. That had to be it. The kid couldn't be dead; he just couldn't be.

Gritting his teeth, Gohan finally managed to push himself up to his hands and knees; his head swam, threatening to drag him back into unconsciousness, but he fought it, and opened his eyes. Groaning, he lifted his gaze; the edges of his vision were blurry, and his head light, giving him the surreal impression, as he watched the figures of the androids bickering incessantly, that he was dreaming.

Android Seventeen's eyes angrily flicked over to him for an instant, and then returned to him, the anger replaced by surprise. Seventeen smiled. "Hey, Eighteen, check it out. He's alive."

"Hm?" Eighteen turned her blonde head to look at Gohan. With an indignant frown, she crossed her arms. "Well, what do you know? Looks like you had nothing to get so upset about."

Gohan paid her little attention; he was focused on her brother. "Trunks…" he began through clenched teeth, straining to make his voice heard as he climbed unsteadily to his feet. He needed to know for sure. "What… did you do to him?"

Seventeen chuckled in apparent amusement. "Oh, your little friend? Heh. Are you sure you want to know?"

"Tell me!" Gohan demanded hoarsely, fists clenching and unclenching spasmodically; he was in no mood to play these ridiculous games.

"Gee, I don't know," Android Seventeen returned, voice full of mock-innocence. He turned to his sister. "Hey, Eighteen, do you know what happened to the shrimp?"

Eighteen shrugged, joining in the act. "Nope. No idea. Anything could have happened to the stupid runt. Probably deserved it."

"I said: tell me!" Gohan was barely aware that his ki had flared to life again, its aura flickering from white, to gold, and back again. Chunks of debris lifted into the air, shivering as though they still rested upon the shaking ground, and then exploded.

None of these things, however, stole the grin from Android Seventeen's face. "That's quite the temper you've got there. All right, if you really want to know that badly… The last I saw of him was when I sent a building crashing down on his head."

"Nani?" Gohan's voice was a shaky whisper.

"You heard me," Seventeen continued, his grin widening. "A huge one, too. Tons and tons of rock. Brat's squashed flatter than a swatted bug."

More dizzy than his wounds could account for, Gohan sank to his knees, burning eyes focused upon the ground; his throat hitched. No… It can't… He can't be…

The battered pavement hazed out of his vision, replaced by memories of the past two weeks. Trunks looking at him warily after he'd first rescued him… Trunks crying quietly because he missed his mother… Trunks bursting out laughing when Gohan had kept embarrassing himself in the woods… Trunks' face alight with glee and excitement when he'd learned how to fly…

Each of these images shattered before his eyes, blown to pieces by two small words. He's dead…

"Aww, Seventeen, I think you hurt his feelings," a mocking voice floated into his ears.

"Poor little kid," another voice teased. "Guess he shouldn't have insisted on knowing; he just can't handle it."

The words seared through Gohan's mind, a sensation even greater than the trails of burning liquid that leaked from his eyes. They'd taken someone from him again, those monsters. The first and only real friend he'd had in three years was gone. Murdered.

Not… not again… he thought brokenly.

"You know, kid," came the second voice, Android Seventeen. "I could fix it so you could see him again really soon. How about we end this?"

Lifting his gaze, Gohan narrowed his eyes in fury as Seventeen slowly approached him. This wasn't three years ago, when he'd still been freshly heartbroken over his father at the time of his friends' deaths; this was now, when he had come to terms with the terrible events of his past. This time, he wasn't going to retreat into sorrow. No. This time, the androids were going to pay.

Gohan pulled himself to his feet, the multitude of individual agonies that had kept him close to slipping back into darkness forgotten. With a shout of rage, he flared his ki, straining it into golden brilliance; the ground trembled anew under the force of the shockwave. He fixed his eyes on the surprised face of Android Seventeen.

"Hai," he said softly. "Let's end it."

It's so dark.

That was the first thought that entered his mind. Not the terrible pain in his hand, nor the hot stickiness on his forehead. Trunks didn't really know why that was; being hurt was supposed to be a lot scarier than being in the dark, wasn't it?

Dizzily, he used his good hand to push himself up, blinking as something thick dribbled into his eye. Probably blood. His back was pressed up against something cold and rough; he prodded his good hand against it, and decided that it must be rock. That made sense. He fuzzily remembered rocks falling over him. After he'd seen that last building blown up, he'd found one with the door tucked further back into the wall, just like the place where Gohan-san had saved him the first time, and decided to hide there.

Gohan-san… The thought caused Trunks to wrap his arms around himself, ignoring the pain in his right hand, and biting his lip to keep from crying---but the tears came anyway.

"He's not coming this time, brat. My sister has some business with him, and I don't think she's happy. Bad things happen when she's not happy---death, usually."

Death. Killing. He knew what those words meant, and he could say them if he wanted. But he never wanted to. They were scary words; they made terrible things even more real. Somehow, saying things like "gone away forever" or "get" made them not so serious, so he used those words all the time. His papa wasn't "dead"; he had just "gone away". It made it so much easier to handle. It didn't matter which words Trunks used now, though---he was still horribly worried about what might have happened to Gohan-san.

Trunks didn't want Gohan-san to… die; actually, he didn't want anyone to die, but especially Gohan-san. He was his friend, the only one he really had; Trunks loved his mother a whole lot, but parents didn't count as friends.

Wiping his eyes, he tried to convince himself that Gohan-san was all right; after all, he had managed to get away from the bad robots before, at least one time. He could get away again. But last time I saw him, he was getting beat up real bad…

Trunks blinked back fresh tears and sniffled, coming to a decision. He was going to go and find Gohan-san. He didn't care if it was dangerous or not, because he had to make sure that Gohan-san was all right, and besides, he was going to be extra careful that the bad robots didn't see him. It was a simple idea, and one that Trunks thought he could probably make work.

Now all he had to do was find a way to get out from under all of the rocks.

He wrinkled his face in thought, rolling several ideas through his mind. He wasn't strong enough to move the rocks, and he didn't think that anyone would hear him if he tried to call for help, so neither of those options were any good. Wearied, he sighed, and gently rubbed his injured hand---it still hurt, and when he touched it, it felt like there were little cracks in it---with his good one.

"I gotta find a way out," he whispered, hoping that maybe hearing his own voice would make him feel less lonely. It didn't. "What would Gohan-san do?"

Closing his eyes, Trunks thought back to the day that Gohan-san had first saved him. They'd been underneath a lot of rocks then, too, and Gohan-san had blown them up with his ki…

Trunks' eyes snapped open. Blowing the rocks up? Could that work? He'd seen how Gohan-san and the bad robots shot beams of ki out of their hands, and it didn't look very hard; all he figured it would take was making a ki ball like he had while he was learning how to fly and pushing it away from him. Easy. He was sure he could do it.

Shifting carefully---there wasn't very much room---Trunks leaned his back against the door so that he was facing the rocks. He raised his left hand, and pushed some ki into it; a pale glow lit the small space. Tightening his lips, he forced more power into the flickering yellow ball that floated just in front of his palm, until he felt that he had enough to make a hole---and then pushed it forward.

He jumped at the bright flash and the fierce hiss that accompanied the release. A funny smell wafted into his nose, a smell that he knew. It was how places smelled after the bad robots attacked them. He'd always hated that smell---it reminded him of the bad robots, and it was also just plain yucky---but he'd never known what it was. Cautiously, he extended one finger and prodded the place where he could hear the hissing noise.

"Ow!" Trunks jerked his hand back. The rock was hot to the touch. Curious, he waited until the burning feeling in his finger went away, and then prodded the rock again. He smiled when he discovered that he'd managed to blow up a little chunk of it. That wasn't so hard, but it looked like it was going to take lots of blasts before he would be able to get out of here; he'd have to try to make the next ones stronger so it wouldn't take as many. And then, once he was free, he'd go find Gohan-san and then they would go see his mother.

Excited by these prospects, Trunks raised his hand again and fired, making sure that this blast was stronger than the first one. He checked to see how effective it had been---after waiting a minute so that he wouldn't burn his finger like he did last time---and found that the impression in the rock had deepened a little bit. Sighing, Trunks let free another.

This was going to take a while.

Gohan's body rebelled against the level of power he'd summoned, pleading exhaustion and injury, but he refused to listen to it. He would eventually have to, he knew, but for now he ignored the protests. Before he dared give in to them, there was something that he needed to do, something that he could not disregard.

The edges of his vision were still hazy---whether from his wounds or his rage he neither knew nor cared---but he could see well enough. Android Seventeen's face sported an expression of mild surprise, while behind him, Android Eighteen had raised a blonde eyebrow.

"That sure made you mad, huh?" Seventeen asked casually, a smirk creeping onto his thin lips. "Well, that's good; I was hoping you'd put up a fight. Your little friend was fun, but without being able to fight, he could only amuse me so much. Try to be more entertaining that he was, okay? Or can you even manage that in your condition?"

In answer, Gohan bared his teeth and launched himself forward; he snarled ferociously as Android Seventeen lightly sidestepped his first attack and coolly danced around the next one. Gohan would have forced himself to calm down, so that he could think more clearly and fight less predictably, but without his fury, he would be unable to retain Super Saiyajin form and therefore lose any chance of actually doing damage to his opponent. That chance was the only thing he wanted, and he was not about to let it go.

"Come on! You're going to have to do better than that!" Seventeen called out playfully.

Gohan cut off the android's ensuing chuckles with a punch that connected solidly with his nose; Seventeen staggered a bit, but otherwise suffered little or no damage, still managing to evade the kick that Gohan sent toward his chest.

A flash of light. Gohan almost didn't see it, and barely managed to dodge it in time, but he realized belatedly that it was only a feint; he had no time to react properly to prevent Android Seventeen's knee from smashing into his ribs, exactly where he'd been struck earlier and the bone was weak. He felt the snap much more than he heard it, doubling over as a cry tore itself from his throat.

A heavy blow to his temple sent Gohan tumbling to the ground, fighting to remain conscious. Succeeding in that much, he pushed himself into the air as soon as he rolled to a stop, narrowly evading the pseudo-ki blast that was sent his way, though he coughed a bit on the dust that exploded upward from where the blast had made contact with the pavement.

Pain and dizziness clawed at his power, trying to tear it from his grasp. For a few seconds, Gohan was tempted to give in; he was tired, weak, and in desperate need of sleep. Still, he pushed that impulse away as he watched Android Seventeen smoothly raise himself to his level in the air, grinning. Like he'd probably been when he'd murdered Trunks.

Gohan bared his teeth in a snarl, forcing that horrible thought through his mind in an endless cycle, adding more fuel to the furious blaze in his heart. He killed Trunks. He killed Trunks…

"Not bad so far, all things considered," Seventeen drawled. "But not nearly enough. I might have to end this quicker than I wanted, just to make sure that I don't get bored. Everyone has to go around and do something to spoil my fun. Eighteen… you… even your little friend." The android's grin shifted into a cold smirk. "Well. That one's been taken care of already."

That simple statement was all it took. Gohan surged forward in half-blind fury, instinctively aiming all of his blows at what he'd long-since learned were critical points of the body, but each time, Android Seventeen smoothly ducked out of the way, making no counterattacks and forcing Gohan to chase him across the sky. Not a single strike came even close to landing; it was, perhaps, one of the least successful assaults that Gohan had ever launched.

Single-mindedly focused on attack, he was unable to defend himself when Android Seventeen finally decided to move to the offensive; the blows were not many, but they were powerful, and each time one landed, something broke. First, his nose, smashed by the heel of a hand. Next, his collarbones, snapped by a fist. Then his shoulder, shattered by a foot.

The pain was incredible, a million separate agonies blended into one. A horrible burning sensation that refused to stay in its places of origin, crashing over each of Gohan's nerves like an ocean of liquid fire, drowning sight, and hearing, and all other senses.

He didn't even feel his body hit the ground.

It was getting closer, that little circle of light. Encouraged, he crawled toward it, eager to leave his tight confines. Slowly, he drew closer, and closer…

Trunks poked his head out into the open air, taking deep breaths. The air out here still had that awful smell of a bad robot attack, but it was a lot better than the air under all the rocks---that had been all stuffy and really uncomfortable. He sat still for only a minute, and then, being extra careful not to use his hurt hand too much, wriggled out of the tunnel that he'd blasted through the rocks.

Once he was free, he sat with his back against the rock pile, and closed his eyes sleepily. It had taken a lot of blasts---he wasn't sure how many, since he didn't know how to count that high yet---to make a big enough hole for him to fit through, and using his ki had made him really tired. He'd had to stop a lot, just so he could get some rest and be able to fire any more ki blasts; sometimes, he'd almost fallen asleep…

Trunks' eyes snapped open; there his body went, trying to take a nap again without his permission. Didn't it know that he had important things to do? Like finding Gohan-san? Bodies sure didn't think very well, or his would certainly have realized that he had things that needed to be done.

"We can go to sleep later," he mumbled at himself, climbing to his feet. The world spun a little as he did so, forcing him to put his good hand to his forehead for a minute to steady himself. He noticed absently that the hand came away bloody.

Blinking dazedly, Trunks scanned the area, wondering which way Gohan-san was. All he saw were a bunch of destroyed buildings, and a whole lot of people, some of them bleeding or limping, or caring for other people who were, heading steadily in one direction. Curious, he turned to see where they could all be going. His eyes took in a huge, domed building, still undamaged, with a lot of open space around it. Something was written in big letters on the building, and though Trunks couldn't read very well yet, he knew what the words were---his mother used to tell him all the time---and he stared in awe and disbelief.

Capsule Corporation.

"Home," he whispered, so softly that even he barely heard his voice. Standing in front of him was the place he'd used to think he might never see again. The place where he followed his mother around all the time while she was working, and tried to play with some of the neat machines that she and Grampa made. The place where Gramma would sometimes let him have a sweet or two before supper as long as he promised not to tell his mother. The place where his mother would hug him goodnight, tuck him in, and tell him silly bedtime stories.

Trunks wanted desperately to just run inside, find his mother, and give her the biggest hug ever, but… He looked back over his shoulder. "Gohan-san…"

He bit his lip, and looked back and forth from home, to over his shoulder, unable to decide which way he really wanted to go; he felt as though he were being pulled on by the two directions, and that he might rip in half if he didn't pick one. His teeth dug even harder into his lip as his mind rattled off reasons to go one way or the other, until he made his choice. Drawing in a deep, shaky breath, Trunks broke into a run.

Homeward.