Contradicting Mission

Part 5

Freeza said the city's name was irrevolent. In all truth, Son Gohan didn't know why he had asked about a name in the first place. But for some reason, it mattered alot to him. The planet that he was flying over was the planet he was supposed to save, just as he had saved Earth, his beloved planet, so many times before. He loved Earth, loved how it smelled, looked, felt, sounded and even tasted with enough power that he was willing to risk his life for it.

The only thing he knew about planet Aeesu was that it had a purple sky and that tyrannical, planet crushing, cold hearted, killing machines were born and raised here. He wondered if he accually would risk his life to save this planet. Earth, despite the harsh, painful memories that had spored there, had raised him gently, encouraged high morals and a sense of fighter's pacifism, transforming him into the living contradiction he was today.

He wanted to know more about Aeesu-sei. Though he knew he would never know it as intimately as he had known Earth, he wanted some proof that he was saving a planet worth saving. He wanted to know he was helping a race that loved life and all its aspects just as much as he did. He wanted to look past the fear and helplessness he had felt at the hands of the Aeesu-jin to see that they had more than hearts of stone.

The Saiya-jin had seemed evil at first didn't they? Wasn't Vegita once what Gohan would have considered a heartless bastard, only out to kill and hurt and torment, sowing pain and death in his wake? But now that he knew him, the boy saw the Vegita deep down wasn't like that. Was it the same with Freeza? For some reason, Gohan didn't want to think so. He wanted Freeza to have a heart as black as the memories that went with him. Gohan didn't want any other feelings other than hatred toward Freeza. He didn't want to change his mind again.

In his present position in life--save the recent relocation to this new planet--Gohan had just started to get the pieces of his life back together again. He was finally able to think of his father with only a feeling of nostalgia, regret only a shadow where it had once been an unbearable weight. He was starting to make his own personality, going with what he wanted, not only trying to please those he adored. And though he still greatly loved and respected Piccolo and his father and his mother and everyone else, he was starting to mold himself into his own image, coming up with his own values, beliefs, preferences and annoyances.

And then he had to go and get cast into this situation where he had to even doubt his hatred of Freeza.

Where would that leave him? Would he start to suddenly hand out forgiveness to all his enemies?

You're great Nappa.

I love you Garlic.

You're a great guy Bojack.

I forgive you Cell.........

Gohan shuddered and hoped it would never come to that.

There was no visible city to be seen as Freeza said, "We're here."

The other three of them looked around curiosly to see what he was talking about. They were hovering above a wide mountain range, the rugged stripe of drasically uneven elevation running as far as the eye could see to the north and south, surrounded on the east and west side by the sparsly grassed plains in which the four had spent the previous night.

"What are you talking about?" Bojack demanded, "I see no civilization."

"Idiot," Freeza returned, "You don't even know what to look for--look there."

Bojack, Gohan and Garlic all followed the direction in which Freeza's long white fingers were pointing, and at first saw nothing. The massive, rocky exterior of the mountains was mottled with caves and crevises, some looking like they might reach all the way to the planet's core, but none looking like the enterance to a civilized dwelling of a secient species like the Aeesu-jin.

Gohan saw it first. He leaned forward and squinted his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

"I think I see it," he said, "Under that big crevice? That strange light......"

The others quickly saw it as well.

"What is it?" Bojack asked.

"The enterance," Freeza said and flew down toward it, "Aeesu-jin live under ground. Come on, then, we don't have all day."

The others followed him with slight apprehention. When they were eye level, they could see that it wasn't just a light, but a door framed with fine, florecent hair like particles. The looked like glowing strands of sea-weed and with each breeze they swayed, shifted, danced as though gravity itself didn't dare touch them. They looked beautiful, though Gohan wondered if he was the only one who saw it that way.

"Their opposite of photoshynthetic," Freeza explained the plants, "They absorb oxygen and water and transform it into carbon dioxide, sugar and light. Aeesu-jin scientists invented them to grow around the entrances to our underground dwellings to make them easier to locate."

He slid a pale hand around the door frame unil he located a slide away pannel; hitting the release device, it slid away to reveal a small collection of buttons lined in a neat row beneath a miniture monitor screen. Freeza carefully typed a simple code into the buttons and the monitor sprung to life, showing the face of an Aeesu-jin Gohan had never seen before.

The boy was mildly surprised, for though the other Aeesu-jin indeed had many features that corosponded with Freeza's, there were also many that did not. Where Freeza had purple metalic accents, this Aeesu-jin had green. It was an emerald green and for some reason the color reminded Gohan of fresh green grass, the vibrant color Earth foliage took on when it had just budded and wanted to show off it's beauty and splendor at just existing. The Aeesu-jin's eyes were a deep, maroon color as compared to Freeza and his family's flaming red. His skin was a soft blue that faded to crisp white in the center of his face.

"State name and intention," the Aeesu-jin said mundanly, it was obvious that he had been answering calls like this for quite a time now.

"Freeza, off-planet Aeesu-jin requesting enterance of self and three servants to get temporary on-planet identification."

Gohan, Bojack and Garlic all scowled deeply at being referred to as 'servants.' The Aeesu-jin on the monitor tick-typed on a keyboard below their point of view and read something for a minute. They waited, and soon he returned his attention to them, stating in the same monotone he used earlier.

"Confirmed, proceed immidiatly to identification booth 31-K, they will be expecting you within twenty minutes."

"Understood," Freeza said, and the monitor went dead.

"He certainly seemed enthused," Bojack said quietly.

"He must love his work," Garlic agreed.

Gohan didn't bother commenting as he leaned forward to closer inspect the stringy, glowing plants that framed the door. Quite suddenly, the door slid open with a quiet hiss. A gust of freezing air spumed out from within, momentarily fluttering the boy's hair wildly around his face, so cold it stung Gohan's nose so sharply it made his eyes water and his flesh broke out in goose bumps. He wrapped his arms around themselves.

"Why is it so blasted cold in there?" Bojack asked moodily, as his lava colored hair leapt in the sudden icy blast that enveloped them all.

"Aeesu-jin are cold blooded," Freeza said, mildly annoyed at constantly being asked questions, "We like it at this temperature."

"But don't cold blooded creatured need lots of warmth to keep themselves active?" Gohan asked before he realized his lips were moving. That damn curious scientist that shared Gohan's body just couldn't seem to stop asking questions, despite his attempts to stifle them.

"We don't need warmth," Freeza hissed as he started to enter the now open door way, "We only need light. Our scientists have found that photo-energy can just as easily be produced in a laboratory than by the sun, now would you all just stop asking stupid questions and get the hell in already?"

The followed him in without further questioning, though Gohan paused to pluck a few phosphorecent plants from the glowing door way incase he got the chance to study them later. No one noticed or cared as he tucked the still glowing plant life into the front of his gi and flew a bit faster to catch up.

As he exited down the hall way at a far slower pace then he had entered, Sunow ran over all the facts he had gained during his meeting with Backlash.

There had been a series of murders recently, targeted mainly at high standing Government officials--dukes, kings, emporors--each were linked to some elusive killer, presumed assassin, who vanished like a puff of smoke every time authorities reached the crime scene. Higherarchy were in fear, authorities were in frustration and every civilian from the age of one and up was in suspect.

And Sunow was charged with the laborious task of finding the killer or killers responsible, apprehending them, turning them over to Backlash and erasing all parts he played in the situation so Backlash may partake of the credit. His reward: he entered Backlash headquarters with many known, prosecutable charges hanging over his head like a deranged mental Chinese water torture and was still able to walk out alive. And he had the promise that if he was ever apprehended himself, Backlash would do what they could to bail him out. For the rest of his life.

And Backlash held considerable sway when it came to capital punishment.

So far, all he could do was keep a constant vigil over anyone that might be trying to get a new set of identification. These were the kind of people that were trying to escape from the law, lose their old name and the past that lived with it, and go on free as a bird until they commited another crime and had to change it again. The average criminal Aeesu-jin tended to be a repeated offender of a certain crime, usually violence.

The weight on his shoulders emense, the mentally and physically weary young Aeesu-jin made his way through winding halls and corridors to his own little sancuary, generally known as 'home.'

How, oh, how am I going to pull this off?

He placed his pale hand against the door-open button outside of his comfortable, family sized quarters and sighed once more in contempt at his eventful, but anxious life. His need to feel sorry for himself was forcefully shoved out of the picture when the instant the door slid open; two miniature, hyper-active Aeesu-jin children came scampering, skittering, tripping, crawling, tearing and racing to the door to greet him, bouncing with child-like excitement and jabbering the way only the young can. With all the comotion and motion, it could be easy to mistake the two children out to greet him to be ten, if not twenty, in number.

"Didja' bring me anything, Papa? Huh huh huh?!" The eldest of the two, Forester, nearing fifteen years, was already persuing materialism.

"Papa! Papa home, yay! Papa!" The youngest, Eesei, hardly two years old, was still trying to master the language before being able to demand gifts. Surprisingly, this one was taking on more femanine qualitie and was more often referred to as a 'she' than a 'he' though there was scientifically no difference in genders.

Sunow laughed. It was good to have family. Once the two had settled down--the youngest finally tired of giving rib cracking hugs and the eldest weary of tugging at his arm--Sunow bothered speaking. Anytime sooner and the words would be lost in the commotion.

"Ah, my children!" He addressed them, they smiled, "How was your education today? Did you learn anything good?"

"We started learning to control our power! Teacher says I'm one of the best.........though I think he says that to everyone."

"Wonderful, wonderful, good to hear, my boy. And how about you, little Eesei, what did you do today?"

"Paint," the child said enthusiasically as she withdrew a drippy sheet of paper from behind her back. On the paper was a swirling mass of painty colors mushed together so thoroughly that in the center it had been reduced to a mucky brown surrounded by irrational twirls of deluded purple, thick yellow and lots of orange. It was hidious.

"It's beautiful," Sunow said, and to him, it really was.

"It's you!" she cheered and scurried off to her room to hang her 'master piece' on the wall with all her others, the still drying paint leaving a drippy, colorful trail in her wake, her stubby tail arched in pride behind her. Sunow sighed greatfully.

"We have two messages," Forester said with teen-like indifference as h meandered back to his quarters.

Sunow slowly walked to the computer console that stood next to the door. He deeply hoped he hadn't gotten another summoning , as had happened earlier that day, for he was known for his promptness and had already been late once. He did not want to be considered late again.

He gave a relieved sigh when he saw that neither were summonings, or jobs. He opened the first one and read with great distaste that it was nothing more than a bill. He hated bills, even though he easily had the money to pay them. It was just the principal of the thing. Quickly as he could he signed off a good sum of money and a copy of his stamped identification to the Head Bureau of Finances and Tax Collection, and have it over and done with.

The second was worse. He wished it were a bill. It was quite possibly one of the most bothersom, terrible annoyances he could ever become involved with, especially now that he had a new case in which he would have to devote his time.

Quite a few years ago, Sunow had met a most interesting off-planet Aeesu-jin. Though his name was beyond the point, this particular Aeesu-jin had so affected the young Sunow's mind that he hence forth belived that all off-planet Aeesu-jin were the most spectacular, fascinating, amusing and intelligent living creatures in the universe that the instant he could he went out and signed him and his household up to the disposal of any off-planet Aeesu-jin that happened to need a temorary place to stay.

Through the years, he had learned just how big of a mistake it had been as he quickly began to realize that most off-planets were just as annoying, egotistical, bothersom, haughty, boastfull sacks of hot air as any on-planet character. He even grew to dread the next letter saying that his house had come around for use again.

And that was exactly what this message was. His name was up again, and the next off-planet to register for temporary residency and identification would be offered his home at their disposal.

Sunow moaned to himself, sent a message of comprehention as a reply, and went to check on his kids.

The enterance to the underground city had limited visual, as for the past fifteen minutes they had been traveling through hallway segments. There was hardly more than twenty feet of hall before it was cut off by a large, heavy metal door that swung open as they approached it.

After passing sixteen doors, Gohan counted, they approached a bigger, heavier, thicker door that one could just tell was the last one.

"Any thing you want to warn us about before we enter?" Garlic asked as he looked back down the hall they had entere through. He couldn't see very far, as the doors had closed behind them.

Freeza just grinned and palmed the door open.

Gohan didn't know what to expect as the door swooshed open. Still, despite his attempts to prepare himself for unexpected he was still surprised. He thought that perhaps it would look like an normal city with a dome over it to protect it from the tons of dirt pressing down on it from above, street lights, maybe even something like cars.

Oh, how far from accuality he was. For at first glance, it looked quite primitive. It was like a huge underground cavern with haligen lights above it. And it was indeed huge. The roof of the cavern was, without over exageration, nearly ten miles above their heads. The mountan had looked huge from the outside, but, though this gargantuan cave wasn't nearly as large as the whole mountain, it certainly made it look alot bigger. The rocky surfaces were still exposed, not covered with any sort of high tech metal. There was no dome, and Gohan got the impression that the ground high above them would surely cave in apon them any second. And every surface was pocked with other holes and caves, leading deeper into the city, looking even from the outside like an unavigable maze.

But it was neither the size, nor the instability, nor the hundreds of caves that had surprised the young half Saiya-jin.

It was the fact that the entire place, from one point of view to the other, was teeming, swarming with Aeesu-jin of all shapes, sizes and colors. They were climbing along the walls with hands and feet, their long tails swishing behind them, they climbed upside down, left, right, always with their head close to the rocks beneath them first and their tails behind them, giving Gohan the impression he had just stumbled into a giant lizard nest.

And it was absolutely silent. The Aeesu-jin made no sound as they traveled along their own, laborous path. Not a word was uttered between them, not a rock was knocked out of place despite the constant movement.

Perhaps more of a spider's nest than a lizard nest....... Gohan thought. The whole place gave him the creeps.

Freeza moved silently to one of the walls and placed one white hand against the well worn surface. He looked back at the three of them to see that they hadn't moved to follow him--they were still staring at the walls above them. Freeza cleared his throat and the all looked back at him. He jerked his head in a 'this way' motion and started climbing the walls.

The three of them still on the groun wanted to ask questions. They wanted to make some sound. It was unnervingly silent for a place so full of people. But they only shrugged to eachother. Garlic started to levitate up after Freeza, who was carefully picking his way up the steep wall.

Various Aeesu-jin eyes darted his way, each burning with disapproval. Garlic didn't have time to react as Freeza's tail suddenly whipped out and swatted him back to the ground. The other Aeesu-jin turned back to their own tasks. Garlic glared death at Freeza, but the Aeesu-jin only gestured to the walls.

The message was clear. Flying was prohibited in this area. They would have to climb.

At first, they didn't move. They only stared up the wall at Freeza, who was glaring back at them. They exchanged glances. They stared back at the wall.

Finally, with an exaperated sigh, Gohan approached the wall. He looked up at it for a moment, back at Bojack and Garlic, then he placed one hand to the wall. He found a hand hold and hoisted himself up. It felt strange, scurrying up the wall--following Freeza no less--like one of the other lizard like people. His tail arched in the air behind him, giving him extra balance as he quickened his pace.

Bojack and Garlic soon followed.

They soon had entered a heavily trafficed area, being forced to dart around other fast moving Aeesu-jin who had the added advantage of fingered feet to help them move along the rocks, while Gohan, Garlic and Bojack had to scramble at the nearly worn smooth rocks with the tips of their toes in an attempt to find foot holds. The tedious work got worse as the rise they were climbing got steeper and steeper, soon rising up to a 90 degree angle. They dug their fingers into the rock, kicked at worthless toe holds, and gritted their teeth as the thought more and more how great it would be to be able to fly.

But somehow, they managed to follow Freeza, who was forced to constantly stop his speedy incline to impatiently wait for them.

Finally, Freeza took a sharp turn and darted into one of the caves, the purple tip of his tail vanishing out of the other's view. After three or four minutes, Gohan reached the branch behind him. Grabbing hold of the lip of the off-branching tunnel, he swung one of his legs over the edge and soon had hoisted the rest of him up after it.

He stood at the mouth, one hand on the wall supporting himself, and looked back down at the slope he had just climbed. He hadn't been keeping track of the amount of distance he was covering as he climbed, but as he looked down now, he saw that it had at least been two miles. He sighed, glad the climbing trek was over.

He looked over the Aeesu-jin that crawled vertically below him, watching as they moved with blatant disregard for gravity, and looked for Bojack and Garlic through the masses. Bojack's huge form and noticable hair wasn't too difficult to spot. He was almost to the cave himself, perhaps fifty feet away. Garlic was no where to be seen. It wasn't surprising. His miniature form had probably vanished from view the instant he entered the moving, swirling climbing throng.

Gohan didn't worry too much about it as he leaned against the wall to wait.

Soon, a large blue hand had wrapped around the lip of the cave enterance. The hand was soon followed by Bojack. The cave was the perfect size for people of smaller stature like Freeza or Gohan, but Bojack's massive shoulders and intimidatingly large form forced him to hunch over to avoid bumping his head on the cave cealing. His deep voice rumbled with annoyance, but the silence of his surroundings kept him from voicing his annoyances further.

Garlic emerged from the hord of moving bodies and tails, his tiny blue hands scouring the rocks for good hand holds. He pulled himself into the cave and took a moment to catch his breath before looked up to the other three that were waiting for him.

Freeza didn't bother saying anything else as he turned and started down the hall. The other three didn't bother pausing thing time before they plunged in right behind him.

The hall way was dark, almost too dark to see through, and Gohan pulled the phosphorecent plants he had picked earlier to help them keep track of where Freeza was going. The plants offered pitiful little light, but what they did offer seemed to go straight to Freeza's pale body, causing it to glow as though it were in black light.

The Aeesu-jin turned left. Then right. Then right again. Then he jumped up into a cave that went vertically for a few feet before turning sharply horizontal again. Then right again. Then left. They walked past hundreds of other caves and other turn offs, and Gohan wondered if he would ever be able to find his way back out of here again with anything short of blasting a himself a hole to the surface.

Finally, after Gohan began to think he would soon start suffering from vertigo, Freeza turned down one more caved off hall way that came to an abrupt stop at a door. The door had the red, florecent glowing words 'Identification Booth 31-K' glowing like a beacon above it.

"We're here," Freeza stated.

To be continued.................