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She
opened the door to her bedroom; a warm afternoon breeze danced across her
face and the fluttering of her curtains only added to the peacefulness.
Breeze!
She hadn’t left the window open.
A terrible feeling wrenched at her gut and she flung the door open.
Her breath caught in her throat; the bed was empty.
“It’s
okay Bulma,” she calmed herself, taking deep soothing breaths,
“she’s probably just found her own way to the bathroom, that’s all.
There’s no need to jump to conclusions.
Nahmi sweetie, you can come out now!”
******
The
wind buffeted and bullied her hair, leaving her face chill.
She patted her pocket lovingly,
Thank goodness for this flask, an evil grin etched itself on her
face... if I hadn't found it I would
still be stuck in that bed, and would have been for a long time.
I’ve never felt so refreshed and powerful; it’s such a shame
it’s almost empty now.
I wonder who’s bed I was in, perhaps my own, the smile faded
and Nahmi clasped her head in her hands, argh…I wish I could remember something more recent than being hit on
the head years ago!
The only other thing I can remember happening to me since then is
being knocked unconscious just last night.
She growled… last
night. Memories,
for now, are trivial…I first have to find my ship, and then complete my
Mission. Memories can wait until then…the evil grin returned, more
defined than ever…which
shouldn’t be too far away.
But first…the ship.
******
“Nearly
there,” Trunks stated, and Gohan nodded his head, putting in an extra
spurt of speed.
“Which room is she in?” he asked, and they flew down towards
Capsule Corps.
“Bulma’s,”
Gohan answered simply.
Sure enough, Bulma was waving at them from her bedroom window.
Gohan breathed a sigh of relief, but it was cut short.
“Something’s
wrong,” Trunks growled and flew down past a tree and pulled up beside
Bulma’s window.
Gohan was on his tail.
“Oh
Trunks I’m so glad you’re here!” Bulma threw herself out the window
and flung her arms around her future son.
“You
too Mom,” Trunks replied, his voice brimming with relief, but urgently
fired questions of his own, “what’s the matter, and how’s Nahmi?
Gohan told me all about it.”
Bulma
pulled away and began chewing her thumbnail.
“I don’t know,” she answered stiffly and walked inside, back
turned, gesturing towards the bed, “She’s gone.”
She turned to face them.
“Without a word or a note or anything.
Does she do this often?” a touch of annoyance was hinted in her
tone.
“Thank
God Mom, thank god,” Trunks answered as he climbed through the window,
landing nimbly on his feet.
“What
do you mean ‘thank god’ Trunks?” she snapped, “There’s a sick
little girl out there!” It wasn’t like her son to say a thing like
that. “Trunks?”
her voice suddenly quivered faintly with a slight fear, “Trunks, answer
me! What
do you mean?”
He glanced at Gohan, who had just landed inside.
Bulma, too, turned to him.
“Gohan!
What does he mean?”
Gohan
grimaced.
“Nahmi’s evil,” he answered simply.
******
Nahmi
sensed two ki’s heading towards her.
She froze from instinct, her breath caught in her throat.
They passed high above her and headed towards where she had just
come from.
She breathed again.
One, she recognized.
The other’s energy signature was strangely familiar.
Another Saiyan?
And the one named Gohan.
She scowled, looking back.
She couldn’t see anything; she had left the campus far behind,
but she found that it was easier to concentrate on the energy sources.
Who do They
think I am?
With the word ‘they’, she glanced up at the sky with
disgust, I don’t need the help of other
Saiyans, especially weak ones, to depopulate this pathetic planet.
I’ll prove Them wrong…I can do this on my own.
In fact, I wish I knew why I haven’t done it yet.
But that doesn’t matter, if that campus is where those other
Saiyans are going, then it must be our base…so that makes it a place to
avoid. I’ll
have to make up for my long delay…but it can wait until after I’ve
found my ship.
With
that, she checked that her ki was sufficiently cloaked, and took off
toward the city.
******
“And
that’s how we think she turned evil,” Gohan finished.
Bulma looked as though she was going to faint.
“You
left me to take care of the one
who was powerful enough to defeat Cell, when she was evil?” Bulma
stammered, disbelieving.
“I
didn’t know she had turned evil when I left.
I didn’t realize what the look in her eye meant until I talked to
Trunks,” Gohan stated ruefully with slight defiance.
“I
should have known,” Bulma bowed her head, “she was having terrible
nightmares, and once she sat up and threatened to kill someone, and that
someone just happened to take the place of the only person in the room:
me. Then
she started talking about conquering the Earth, but I just thought that
she was dreaming about beating Cell.”
She shook her head, “But I don’t think she was fighting Cell,
not by the way she screamed at me.”
She looked at Gohan, who had a sorrowful expression of self-blame
on his face.
Bulma bit her lip and changed her tone.
“Oh, but it’s okay Gohan,” Bulma tried to reassure him,
“everything turned out for the best, right?
I didn’t get hurt and there’s still time.
And there was no way that you could have known that she had turned
evil. I’m
sure that everything will turn out fine. Trunks,”
she turned to her son resolutely, “you have to find her.”
Suddenly the doorbell rang.
“Uh-oh.” Bulma froze.
“Uh-oh
what?” Trunks asked suspiciously.
“Nothing!”
Bulma lied, and began whispering, “just keep quiet! Unless you’d
rather get in trouble Gohan, okay?
She might just think no one’s home.”
Suddenly,
a head peeked around the doorway and smiled.
“I thought you’d be in here Bulma, I mean, you weren’t in the
lab or the kitchen.
You know, you really shouldn’t leave a key above the front
door…” she jangled the keys, but stopped short as she opened her eyes,
“G-Gohan…My baby!”
Her eyes welled with joyous tears and she ran into the room and
hugged her son.
“Aww
Mom…” Despite all that had happened, Gohan was glad to see his
mother.
“I
missed you so much Gohan!” Kneeling beside him, she grabbed him by the
shoulders and shook him slightly with a look of concern in her eyes; “I
hope those women took good car of you.”
She suddenly leaned from left to right, peering behind Gohan.
“Where’d Trunks go?”
“
– Ah,” Bulma stumbled to answer quickly, “he’s gone to look for
– ah – Vegeta.”
“Oh,”
Chichi answered with a look of disgust.
Her expression softened, “I have some good news Gohan, where’s
your father, I want to tell you all at the same time.
Goku!” she called, “this is no time for games Goku!” Bulma
shifted uncomfortably, the words catching in her mouth.
“Ah,
Mom,” Gohan began.
“Not
right now, Gohan, I’m trying to find your father,” she interrupted,
not noticing his serious tone.
He
continued, knowing that it was the only way to get her attention. “Dad
won’t be coming.”
Chichi
froze, and turned to her son slowly. “W-won’t be coming?” she
questioned slowly, loosening her grip on Gohan’s shoulders and slumping.
Everything was beginning to make sense; Goku didn’t let that
little girl fight, he didn’t have any say in the matter.
She continued determinedly, though she knew it was hopeless.
“You mean he headed straight home don’t you Gohan, that’s why
he won’t be coming, right?
Please tell me that’s what you mean?”
Gohan
shook his head.
He didn’t want to tell his mother that there was still hope of
his return incase there wasn’t.
Tears brimmed in her eyes and her lip began to tremble, she felt
numb all over.
Her mind was clouded; she couldn’t think.
Chichi suddenly fell back limply; she had fainted.
******
“Oh
Dear,” King Kai mumbled, “oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
She took the news worse than I expected.
I mean…” he bit his tongue; he hadn’t realized that he had
been speaking his thoughts.
He looked up, gazing ahead, and a wide grin quickly overtook his
face, “Look! Goku, look!”
He turned to Goku, pointing ahead excitedly.
Goku
had been forcing himself forward, step by painful step.
He was bent with the effort of resisting.
King Kai’s muffled voice echoed softly in his head.
He had long ago lost touch with everything but forcing himself ever
the more reluctantly to keep up the monotonous rhythm of step after step
after step in the opposite direction to the one he wished to take.
He had even forgotten why he was putting himself through so much,
but he knew in his heart that he had to, and that was all he needed.
King Kai’s voice came again, and he realized that he was expected
to respond.
He opened his eyes, and the sight that greeted them brought on a
wave of hope that gushed like a fountain inside of him.
He suddenly broke into a run, and could hear himself laughing
aloud. A
palace, an exact replica of the Taj-Mahal glinted in all the hues of gold
found on Earth and more.
It was the centerpiece of a glittering yellow tinted bubble that
surrounded it, floating on a cloud that was only separated from him by a
silver rope bridge over an abyss of nothingness.
“Goku
wait,” King Kai yelped, hurrying behind him, “stop!
Okay don’t stop, just don’t fall into the abyss, or you won’t
come back out!”
King Kai’s desperate calls followed him, but he took no heed.
Goku was running across the silver board planks of the bridge.
The bubble had to be the boundary of safety; sweet release from the
feeling that screamed at him to turn around.
But hope that he would make it gave him strength, and strength gave
him speed, and speed gave him hope.
It wasn’t far now; it stretched to the very bottom of the
downward slope of the curvature of the bridge, which ascended once inside
the bubble.
The bridge wobbled dangerously beneath him, clattering under his
boots. He
was almost there.
Suddenly, he slipped and fell forward onto his face…and bumped
forward with the motion of the shaking bridge.
Before he even noticed that it was happening or even had time to
wonder how, he was falling.
He tried to fly but it was no use; he was too weak.
His hand shot out towards the silver rope, but fell short.
He shut his eyes.
He had blown his chance; his only chance at returning to
Earth.
******
Trunks
flew towards the city, he didn’t know why, he just had a feeling that
that was where he had to go.
He peered for any sign of Nahmi; any tell tail signs of
destruction, any clue as to where exactly she might be.
He couldn’t understand it, if she was trying to conquer the Earth
like Bulma had said, then why was she not destroying things as she went?
It had been easier with the androids, which he had yet to defeat in
his own time, they left a clear path to follow in their arrogance and
confidence in their strength.
He was glad that android 18 hadn’t left any paths to follow after
she had suddenly left the lodge.
He wondered why, had something changed in her?
He dismissed the thought, she was an android, it was a much too
complicated thought, and one that he could not let himself contemplate if
he wished to defeat her back in the future.
That and the fact that right now he had to worry about stopping
someone who he knew he did not nearly measure up to in strength.
He had to somehow save her from the evil, but try as he might, he
could not think of how.
He took little comfort in the thought that he would most likely
have plenty of time to think about it as he scoured the city for her, she
could do anything in the city – set off a bomb – and he would never
know. However,
he did take comfort in the fact that if she let her cloak of her ki slip,
or fired an attack, he could locate her immediately, but he was now taken
back to the problem of what he would do when he got to her.
******
Something
suddenly caught his hand and Goku’s body jerked to a suspended stop.
He opened his eyes.
A blue hand clasped his.
“Goku,”
King Kai strained, hanging low from one of the bridge’s flimsy support
ropes, “You are heavy you know!”
Goku
felt a wave of relief and climbed up King Kai as easily as a monkey
climbing a coconut tree.
He had the most amazing, unbelievable feeling of freedom and he had
regained all his strength.
He looked around; he was on the inside of the golden bubble.
He laughed, so hard that you would never have suspected that he had
almost fallen to his doom.
“Hey,”
King Kai yelled irritably, “Little help!
You only get what you give so I had better start getting!”
Goku
pulled him up by the collar and set him down on the now-stable bridge.
“Sorry King Kai, I don’t really know what came over
me.”
King
Kai straightened his clothes and dusted himself off, “No, no,” he said
simply, “It was to be expected, but I couldn’t just let you keep
walking like that.
Don’t worry, it was uncontrollable.”
“I’ll
say,” Goku agreed cheerily, back to his normal light-hearted attitude -
his normal self.
He looked down between the board planks and gulped, “What is
that? I
thought I couldn’t fly because I didn’t have enough strength, but –
and I know this sounds crazy – I felt like it was pulling me
in.”
“It
was,” King Kai answered.
“Have you ever heard the saying, keep your friends close, and
your enemies closer?”
Goku nodded in reply, but King Kai only gave an indicative nod at
the black nothingness.
“Oh,
you mean that’s the gateway to…” he gulped, tugging at his collar,
and began edging up the bridge.
King
Kai nodded.
“In a sense.
But of course, that place doesn’t really exist.
What happen to those who are evil is much worse.
Those whose sins are unforgivable are lead down this road in
shackles and tossed into this pit, left to gape at the things that could
have been.
Many of them end up groveling for forgiveness.
That is the fate of the almighty
Frieza,” he spat with disgusted sarcasm, “and is where Cell will
be sent when he arrives.
He does not have a choice as to whether he remains in limbo or not,
he is being drawn here right now.”
Bubbles and Gregory had caught up; King Kai had not let them on the
bridge with Goku until he was under control.
“Is
that,” Gregory chirped, “the fifth level of the soul then?”
“No,”
King Kai answered seriously, “if you land in there, you are…no
more.”
Everyone gulped - especially Goku.
“The fifth level, no one knows much about,” he continued more
cheerily.
“They say that ghosts are the fifth level, but no one knows for
sure whether ghosts are real or how they come about if they are.”
“Gee
King Kai, thanks for saving me,” said Goku earnestly.
******
Bulma
fanned Chichi with a folded piece of paper while Gohan shook her.
“Mom,
wake up!” he yelled.
It’s no use, he thought,
I can’t believe she took it so badly, I would have expected her to yell
at least.
I wonder what her good news was and why it was so important that
she wanted to tell everyone at once.
Hmm, I’ve got to wake her somehow, I know it’s hard, but she
has to face up to it or it will only make it worse.
I need her and she needs me.
Even if Dad can’t get back, we’ll make it.
He
suddenly jumped up and ran out of the room amidst an idea.
“Gohan,”
Bulma called, “where are you going?
Don’t leave yet…or do you want your mom in hysterics?
Gohan?”
“Yeah
Bulma,” he was back in the room, brandishing a glass of water.
“Oh-no,
nuh-uh, give her time to rest.
And not on my…” her last word fell from her mouth flatly as she
watched Gohan splash the water on his mother’s face regardless of what
she had to say, “floor.”
This time, he was right no matter what she said.
“She
needs to talk,” he said amidst Chichi’s spluttering and Bulma’s
attempts to calm her.
“Gohan,”
his mother shrieked, “what was that for?” A distant expression
suddenly overcame her face and she sat down placidly.
“Goku,” she said mournfully, gazing at puddle she sat in.
“Don’t
worry about Dad, Mom,” Gohan said with faked cheer, “I talked to him,
he’s fine.
He really is happy up there, he even decided that it would be best
if he stayed.”
“He
did what?” Chichi’s old fire was back, “and who does he think it
would be best for.”
It was unlike Chichi to be selfish about something as serious as
what she had been told.
“Oh, but if only he knew what I know, then he wouldn’t have
made that decision.
If only he knew…” she sobbed.
******
King
Kai grabbed Goku’s hand and put it on his shoulder.
“It’s time to talk to Chichi, Goku.
She just heard the news and really needs to talk.”
They stood near the center of the bridge, swaying with a slight
breeze.
******
“Chichi?”
“Goku?”
Chichi looked around the room, sudden tears of happiness streaming down
her cheeks.
“Hi
Dad,” said Gohan, “I knew you’d come back.”
“Hi
Son, how’s things?”
“Goku,”
Chichi cried, “where are you? I can’t see you!”
She looked daggers at Gohan and Bulma, “how could you play such a
cruel trick like that? And you, Bulma, going along with it! You two should
be ashamed…huh?”
“Ah
Chichi,” Goku
interrupted, “they weren’t
playing a joke.
What they told you is true.”
“Then
how am I talking to you? You can’t be,” she began sobbing once more,
she knew her husband wouldn’t lie to her about something so serious,
“you just can’t be Goku.
Goku,” she was crying steadily, stricken with grief, her every
syllable uttered through a sob, “you can’t be!”
“It’s
okay Chichi,” he
began soothing her.
“No
it’s not,” she snapped amidst her tears.
“Goku, you have to come back,” she suddenly burst out with a
wail of despair, “I’m pregnant!
You have to!”
by Lolli
