Contradicting Mission

Part 13

They approached the door Sunow had directed them to. Large and steel and possessing a very impregnable appearance; they didn't have to wonder if they had found the right place or not. This had to be it. Somewhere inside, Freeza and Garlic were being held, perhaps being tortured, perhaps being killed. As much as they hated it, they had to rescue them.

Gohan put his hands on his hips and stared up at the expansive enterance. Too big. It had to be considered simply too big. What kind of creature would need a door that big? It was big compared to even the largest of people he had seen. Big compared to Bojack. Big compared to Freeza's father. Hell, one could probably fly Freeza's whole flaming ship through it and clear it with more than enough room.

Too big. It must be loud when it opens. And take a while. Surely one could not have the element of surprise if they used the front door, and this front door was proof. And they needed surprise on their side. And luck. And time. And silence. Stealth. Hope. Mostly luck.

Gohan felt weary.

"So are we going to do this, or just stare at the door?" Bojack asked behind him. Gohan squeezed his eyes shut in regret--he had invited Bojack to come. Things seemed more preposterious than hopeless, though Gohan had a terrible feeling in the back of his mind--gobbling up his hopes--that he would never get off this damned planet and back to his own time. Or if it did all end, it would be when the planet exploded. He felt exhasted, his tail hung limply behind him.

"We should try to find another way in." He said, and started to walk farther down the hall, watching the walls with a critical eye as he passed. He crouched down and ran his hand against the tiles as though feeling for something.

Bojack didn't follow, "Taking down a couple of these weaklings wouldn't even be worth our effort. Lets just bardge in the front door, blast all the guards to hell and get those two damn idiots and leave. I don't want to have to put up with all this sneaking around crap."

Gohan didn't respond at first. He rapped his knuckles against the tiles here, then there, holding his ear hardly an inch away from the surface. It was only a hope. He didn't know exactly what he was looking for, but he was pretty sure he had found it. He pulled back his fist, gathered some of his power into it, and swung inward. He hardly tapped the wall before stopping himself in mid punch. A mere tap would do, it was only a wall.

The wall cracked, then slowly caved in. As he had hoped he would, he had found a vent--one of millions that pumped cold air into residences and facilities. A sub-zero blast erupted from the hole, toying with the boy's hair and stinging his eyes and nose. Though Gohan had been careful, it still made a considerable ruckus, even when he tried to catch most of the falling tiles and plaster with his hands.

It wasn't a big hole in the wall. Hardly two feet in heigth, and one foot in length. But Gohan was small enough. As he picked out some of the sharper tiles that stuck out around the hole he said, "You can use the front door. Infact, I'm counting on you to."

Bojack didn't say anything. He narrowed his golden eyes.

The destroyed plaster had given up quite a bit of white dust, which settled on the boy's skin and made it look gray. Wiping at his face with the back of his arm, Gohan said, "If you do, you'll probably cause a disturbance, or more importantly a distraction. I can take one five, maybe six Aeesu-jin, but if all the gaurds I think there are come rushing at me at once........" No need to finish the sentance.

"So you want me to get the whole place to try to kill me, so they're too busy to realize you're even there?" Bojack grinned, "Fine. A little bozu like you shouldn't be allowed to play with the big guys anyway."

Gohan gave the closest thing he could get to a smirk, "Maybe we'll be able to pull this off, after all."

And so the boy got down on his stomach and wiggled and squirmed his body through the small hole in the wall, the last thing to vanish within being the tip of his tail. Bojack raised his fist into the air, took aim, and tore himself an enterance right through the door.

Joru Le'armont stood in the center of the room, where the most light could be found. It was too dark in here. Dark and dirty-looking. In every characteristic, it was Henning's. The bastard probably purposly made it thus simply to make it all the more uncomfortable to him. He checked his palms; despite the dirty atmosphere, every white hair he could see on his body was clean, shining their vibrant snowy strands like so much raw quartz. Semi-content that he hadn't been contaminated by the atmosphere, he ran his hand through the shock of blue hair that ran down the center of his head.

He tried to picture his brother--so identical to himself--sitting around this mud hole in total relaxation.

As he lifted the hem of his robe off the ground to avoid soiling it on the unsanitary looking floor, he called to one of the Aeesu-jin sentries who he insisted on having around at all times; they may be murdering monsters, but they were damn loyal at a price and incredibly strong as body guards.

"Has my brother Henning given call, yet?"

The sentry clicked at a small computer he kept attached to his arm. He read something. Looking up, the sentry said, "I'm sorry, sir. No."

Joru swore. True to Tahch-jin custom, he loved his brother with all the affection his family required but dammit he really hated him sometimes!! Why his sibling didn't simply go along with what he wished was beyond frustration. Why the hell would he want to capture a couple aliens? Sure, they weren't Aeesu-jin, but if they had dealings with the Aeesu-jin they should just be allowed to die on the planet.

No, of coarse Henning wouldn't see such logic. He had his curiosities, too; Joru had to allow him that. And unlike Joru, who had a vast fascination with inanimate objects--old fossils, stones, antiques, ect--Henning was vastly interested in the living. That alone was an okay hobbie. But it was Joru's required brotherly love that prevented him from reporting Henning for his fascination not with living so much as killing the living.

Henning was a sadist, living to stop others from doing so. But, like his brother, he also liked to play with original things, things others couldn't find, others couldn't touch. It was strange, how brothers worked together. They traveled through space, in search of their passions. Joru collected his rocks, Henning collected his lives, and they were pretty happy with the arangment.

Except when Henning brought his play things onto the ship.

Joru wrung his hands together when he remembered his brother's last subject.

Rocks and living things really were different.

Joru turned his attention to the printed out message Henning had sent him before vanishing off to wherever it was his brother vanished off to. Short, precise, and hand written. A very Henning way to write messages.

Brother--

I'm leaving these two off-planets in your care while I take care of some business. There is at least one more little alien running around out there--described as a boy, five feet, black hair, orange clothes, thought to have a tail, but it's not varified. If any of the sentries come across him, have them apprehend him immidiatly. I'm very intrigued with this one.

--Henning Le'armont

Joru crumpled up the paper, "Yaro."

"Sir!!" An Aeesu-jin sentry yelled from the terminal at which he sat.

Bemoaning as he crossed the dark, dirty floor, Joru leaned his considerable height over the seated Aeesu-jin, "What is it?"

The sentry looked up at him, fear of something unknown on his face, "Sir....there's a break-in in progress."

Gohan blew warm air onto his fingers as he scrambled through a shaft that blasted freezing air in his face non-stop. The cold was already getting to him, freezing his outter extremities--his ear were like ice! It seemed that, despite the hundreds and hundreds of differences that range throughout all the planets of the universe, the air vents seemed suspitiously similar.

They were dark, cold, metal and dusty. Very dusty.

Gohan sneezed.

He didn't have an exact knowledge of where he was going as he half crawled, half scooched down one frigid vent after another, trying to keep the klang-klang-klang sound that came from his elbows as they dragged the rest of him along to a minimum. The only direction he could really go by was, behind him, Bojack's chi raged through the smaller Aeesu-jin chi's, and ahead somewhere he could feel Freeza's chi, dormant and unmoving. It was perhaps the first and last time Gohan would ever feel glad to know the Aeesu-jin was alive. Garlic must have sunken his chi to undetectability like any good Earth-native would, because Gohan could not detect him. Garlic was immortal, however. As the boy knew from personal expiriance, killing him was the next thing to impossible.

Thank kami Freeza didn't know how to hide his chi or finding them would be close to impossible.

Up.

Gohan suddenly got the feeling that Freeza's chi was more above him than ahead of him. Up. He had to go up. The boy continued to crawl down the vent he was in, watching for someway to follow his senses. His skin looked gray in the pale light that filtered in through the vents-slats that led off to various rooms. Lucky for him, most were empty. Though he tried to be stealthy, he was making quite a racket.

Klang klang klang. He finally found a vent leading upward, but it was barred by a fan; humming and blasting cold air upward, its blades spun at an incredible rate. Not fast compared to the speeds Gohan was used to.

Looking through the grates that ran up and down the vent he was already in to make sure no one was in the rooms closest to him, he squirmed in the cramped space to lay on his back beneath the fan to see his target better; he put his hand up and with a single finger, stopped the blade from rotating. As quietly as he could, he wrapped his fingers around the blades and gave a solid yank, tearing the fan out of it's frame. The mechanisms inside it gave off a dying wrrrrrr.... before going silent.

He lay still on his back beneath the vertical vent, listening to the silence, trying to ignore the dust that fell through and landed on his face; got into his eyes. He counted to one hundred, listening for any sign he had been discovered.

Nothing.

Setting the destroyed fan off to the side, he slipped his thin body upward. The vertical vent was far wider than the horizontal ones; Gohan checked, and each side proved to be the length of an arm. Breathing space. He could just as easily have flown, but he wasn't sure if scouters had been invented yet; and if not, surely some form of chi detection must have been. If he intended to remain on the sly, he would have to climb. And so he did.

It reminded him quite a bit of climbing up steep canion walls way back when he was being trained by Piccolo. With his back pressed against one side of the vent, and his feet pushing against the wall opposite, he had himself braced securely. Keeping himself wedged as best he could, he clambored upward, following Freeza's chi and hoping.

Always hoping.

Joru watched on a screen the sentry had tapped into from a surveylance camera. On screen, he watched one of the biggest, meanest looking giants he had ever witnessed, ripping and tearing his way through a pack of Aeesu-jin guards while his lava hair trailed behind him. Once the giant was done destroying the pack of Aeesu-jin, he went after another, giant fists swinging, teeth exposed in a feral smile that sent shivers running up and down Joru's spine.

What was even more frightening was the fact that he didn't even seem to have a goal. It was mindless destruction, death, wounded and dead Aeesu-jin bodies strewned one room after another as the unknown assailant tore his way around, destroying with his bare hands--Joru had yet to see him use chi.

And there was quite a bit of purple-red blood puddling the floor, as though some gory storm cloud had just rained out it's life apon the cold tiles. Though Joru didn't know it, Bojack was having the time of his life.

"What the hell does he want?" Joru said, his voice surprisingly quiet, not waiting for an answer, he turned to the other three sentry in the room--all of them except the one sitting at the computer console--, "Stop him! Get down there and kill him! Do whatever it takes to keep him from getting any farther!"

The three sentry looked at eachother, faces riddled with fear.

"Anyone that brings that monster down can have half my fortune!" Joru said. The guards looked surprised. Joru didn't lie.

"Sir!" they yelled and ran out of the room.

Joru turned back to the sentry seated at the computer, "Just you and me, now."

The sentry didn't seem like he heard him. His eyes were glued to the murdering giant on the screen, he didn't even really flinch as the blue giant caved a fellow Aeesu-jin's ribs in, splattering his face with blood--at this point, Joru noticed the blue giant had a prominant scar running diagonally between his eyes.

"Suppose....," the sentry said to himself, rubbing his chin.

"Hrm?" Joru asked, the horror of just watching the massacre playing before his eyes contorting his face.

The sentry paused, squinted, watched a moment more, then said, "Le'Armont-san? This man is purposly causing chaos...."

"Obviously," Joru said, then considered. It takes a full fledged lunatic to kill for the sake killing--except, of coarse, his dear brother. So perhaps this giant had a reason....

"Maybe this is just a distraction," the sentry said, "Maybe there's another infultraitor out there, sneaking in some other way...."

And suddenly Joru thought about his brother's message. There is at least one more little alien running around out there.....

"There is another," Joru said, handing the sentry the crumpled up message from his brother, "Take these descriptions and in-put them into the computer. Run a scan over all the rooms of the complex and try to find a person who matched them."

"Sir."

Gohan scrambled along on his elbows down an even narrower tube, not even a foot spanned from the top to the bottom; his chin was nearly scraping against the dusty bottom. He was deeply dissapointed when he had to leave the verticle shaft for this minute vent. Only one fact kept him from stopping and taking an hour or two to figure out what he would do if he happened to get stuck in here.

He was close.

Very close. Close to the chi he recognized as Freeza's. Up ahead, he saw the slitted lighting of a vent that lead into the outside, open world. He would have to get out of hiding now and search in the open, where he would have more choices for where to turn. His search for Freeza and Garlic was far from over.

Klang klang klang. His elbows banged against the metal below him as he hurried along, suddenly gratefull that he would soon be out of this cramped hole in existance.

A hard shove later, and he had rammed the grate from its frame, creating his own exit. And then he was on his way out and into an empty room. Breathing space never felt so good.

The chances were one in a thousand. As the computer scrolled over thousands of rooms and halls, flashing before Joru and the sentry's eyes perhaps three different surveylance perspectives a second, it came across the exact moment that Gohan rammed the grate off the air vent in which he hid.

"Stop it! Back it up," Joru hissed.

The sentry did thus, and they both now could see the shape of a boy climb out of the hole in the wall. A skinny boy, milky complexion, furless except for his head and tail. Dusty, filthy accually, the orange of his gi was dulled with gray dust--no doubt from climbing around in the unclean vents. The boy paused to brush the most of the dirt off himself and pat it out of his hair.

Joru narrowed his eyes, "So that's the little rat my brother's so interested in."

The sentry glanced down at the crumpled message from Henning, "He fits the description."

The Tahch-jin and the Aeesu-jin watched as the boy looked around the room, right then left, and Joru could make out a long, red cut running down one of his cheeks. The boy looked as though he were listening to something, he turned a circle as though he saw beyond the walls to some unknown place, then dashed out the door and into the hall. He was a quick little bugger.

"Keep him in view," Joru ordered, "Get on the communicator and get some guards out there after him, we can't have this place swarming with giants or children.....send word to take him alive. My brother is interested in this one."

"Sir."

The sentry started yelling into his communicator.

Bojack slammed his massive fist into three little Aeesu-jin at once. Two of them cried out, though the first to catch it was dead on impact. He grabbed one of their bodies and hurtled it across the room at another group of Aeesu-jin that came running out to greet him. Rushing to their deaths.

This was fun.

He grabbed the first to reached him by the head, slamming his face into the ground. The second, third, fourth, met his feet and knees. Oh, kami, this was easy! Aeesu-jin training didn't stand a chance against Biraju-jin might. And Bojack was strongest of the Biraju-jin.

He raised his fists high into the air, and brought them down on two of the Aeesu-jin's backs. Something crunched audibly and the two went down without a fuss. They were dropping like flies. Fifteen, twenty, thirty; when a room was cleared of life, he would smash his way through the next wall to find more. After being cooped up in that cruddy little apartment, it was nice to be out and exercizing. This, he knew, was one hell of a distraction.

Only once in a while, he wondered how the kid was doing.

Gohan pelted down one hall after another, following Freeza's chi. The joy at being out of the air-shafts was short-lived, and he now felt exposed, way too out in the open for his tastes. A sitting duck. Just as he rounded another corner, he whipped his head around. He had been so fixed on a single chi he forgot to keep an eye out for others. There was another chi, very close. Someone was coming--

"Hwuuu...," before he could even comprehend what had happened, a large fist rammed up, into his stomach. He lost his wind and staggered backward, arms wrapped under his ribs. He felt some of the food he had eaten that morning try to force its way back up his throat.

From around the corner, the assailant that had struck him emerged--a large, green Aeesu-jin with a wicked-sharp horn sticking out from the top of his head. Gohan forced himself to ignore the pain in his lower torso, swollowing the bile in the back of his mouth as he looked up at the Aeesu-jin.

He narrowed his eyes and lowered himself into a protective fighting stance, wanting to avoid getting hit in the stomach again--this was the second time he had been punched there today. Even a Saiya-jin's intestines can take only so much abuse.

From behind the first Aeesu-jin, a second emerged. Obese, but incredibly tall--perhaps this was what the good doctor looked like when he was a few decades younger. Behind this fat Aeesu-jin, a third appeared. Just as tall as the second, but far thinner, and horrifically muscled. And behind that one came a fourth. Then a fifth. Then a sixth.

Gohan swallowed and lowered his crouch.

"I said I wanted him in tact!" Joru raged, "My brother will be sorely dissappointed if his subject is already worn down!"

"Sir, try to calm down," the Aeesu-jin sentry insisted, "From earlier reports, this boy is known to resist apprehention. They're best chance is to beat him to unconsciousness, it's that or your brother doesn't get anything at all."

Joru sighed and continued to watch.

Three Aeesu-jin, fine. Four Aeesu-jin, okay. Fighting six Aeesu-jin in closed quarters was really pushing it.

Gohan threw himself to the ground back-first, his teeth snapping involuntarily together from the impact. The Aeesu-jin that had been intending to deck him across the face went sailing over him, he looked down and his eyes met the boy's. Gohan brought his legs up and kicked the Aeesu-jin in the chest, sending him sailing upward to hit the cealing and come crashing down nearly ontop of the boy, who hardly had the time to roll aside. A second Aeesu-jin's massive foot stomped where he had been a half second earlier.

Too close.

Things were overwhelming.

Even as he flipped back to his feet he had to throw his head against his shoulder to avoid a possible broken nose. He didn't see the tail until after it lashed up his from beneath him, tearing his lower gi and no doubt his leg with it. The adrenaline was too strong to feel much of anything. Kami, feet and fists were enough to reckon with! Throw tails in and it's like adding a whole new dimention to fighting!

Pivoting, dodging, blocking, jumping, and screaming, he didn't have the time to retaliate--wait, there!!

Ramming every amount of chi he dared into a single fist, he thrust between two other Aeesu-jin and struck a third behind them. He hit solid, breaking the Aeesu-jin's collar bone and whatever lay beneath it. The Aeesu-jin was hurtled backwards against a tiled wall, and as far as Gohan knew, didn't get back up again.

One down, five to go.

Oh, kami.

The two Aeesu-jin, between which he had attacked the third, were not going to take it easy on the boy just because he had taken one of them down. Infact, it seemed just the opposite, as both hurtled their fists at him at the same time. Gohan barely had the time to raise both arms, catching the blows on his wrists; and for it, he was still sent flying back, slamming bodily against yet another Aeesu-jin.

As luck would have it--and luck didn't seem to have much--Gohan had just flown shoulder-first through the Aeesu-jin's defences. Desperate to take any advantage he could, the boy spun himself around twice to build up momentum, then raised a bent arm to slam his elbow against the Aeesu-jin's head. In the least, he would suffer brain-damage.

Delirious from the painkiller his brain was flooding him with, pumping right behind the adrenaline and the inconsistant hot-flushes of Saiya-jin battle lust, Gohan suddenly felt like he was on top of the world. He would win! And suddenly he really, truely began to understand why his father and Vegita loved a good battle so much.

Never before had Gohan expirianced what it was like to fight a battle that pushed him to his limits, but also gave when he pushed back. Always, it had been him against an opponent impossibly stronger than him, or impossibly weaker than him--and Cell didn't count. But here, oh kami, here! Here was what a real battle was supposed to feel like. Oh, why on Earth didn't Otousan tell him about this!?

With a whoop of what must have been joy, he twisted his body at the hips to avoid being kicked, and arched backward to avoid the lashing tail that passed millimeters from his nose. Risking getting lashed in the arms, he reached out and grabbed the Aeesu-jin by the tail and swung him around, a full circle! Once, twice, three times around; the other Aeesu-jin backed away quickly after being hit with their comrad a few times.

Risks! He, Gohan, was taking risks in battle for fun; he spontaniousness! Just look at me, Tousan! Look at me, Vegita! All these years, he had been doing it wrong! It was always fight or die, fight or die, and his young mind naturally associated fighting with death--the grimmest of subjects. And with that prospect, he had doomed himself to hesitancy, fear, hell, he thought everything to death! If I do this, I could die, but if I do that, they could die, but with this I could kill him...... If he had only allowed himself to flow with it, he could very well have succeeded far more in the fighting world than any other!

He released the Aeesu-jin he was swinging around, letting him collide with another, sending them both crashing through the tiled wall behind them.

Not only could he have surpassed his father's power--he had already done that--but his father's ability to fight! That was what made Son Goku a better fighter than Son Gohan, despite power! He faught! His mind and body and instincts and heart and soul and chi all became one! Mere power could never stand a chance against that!

This was what his father ment when he said that power wasn't everything. Power was only the means to release the real root of the fighting spirit.

Without hesitation, Gohan dove after another Aeesu-jin, twisting his body to dodge a stray chi blast. In one on one fighting against these Aeesu-jin, they stood no chance. And for a split second, he considered not trying to take them out, considered allowing all remaining four of them to continue their attacks on him until they couldn't fight anymore......

But somewhere in the back of his head, human Gohan whispered into the ear of Saiya-jin Gohan not to make the same mistake he had seen his father and Vegita make so many times before. Giving the enemy even half a chance could endanger everyone and everything.

Gritting his teeth, he rammed his knee into the Aeesu-jin's chin, hearing something snap, be it a jaw, a nose, a vertibre or whatever. It didn't matter. He had to end this. Using his chi, he flung himself over the Aeesu-jin he had just kneed in a half flip, stopping himself half way so that he was upside down. Through his legs, he saw another Aeesu-jin charging after him. So close, so very close. Gohan reversed his paused flip back the way he came, slamming his knees against the charging Aeesu-jin's shoulders, stopping him cold.

Something in the hit had been lethal, whether sheer force or striking a vulnerable spot, but the Aeesu-jin went down, and went down hard.

In the few seconds of silence after the sixth Aeesu-jin had fallen, Gohan settled back to the ground, his boots making a light tmp tmp as he landed. He looked around, at all the bodies strewn across the tiles, and felt no regret. They had come after him, faught, and lost. If they had retreated, he wouldn't have persued them; in the brief moment of battle rush, he only wanted to face those with a fighting spirit. It had accually been exilerating, if not fun.

Still, he did not allow himself to smile as he surveyed his downed opponents. He accually sighed, feeling saddened by something he couldn't quite recognize. Grief that he had killed again, or that the fight was over?

From one of the shattered walls behind him, bursting up from under a pile of tiles and rubble, a surviving Aeesu-jin suddenly emerged. With a scream, the Aeesu-jin launched himself at Gohan, ready to fight again.

Gohan had had enough fighting at the moment, he had alot to think about. Fighting a single Aeesu-jin one on one was nothing. Face a placid, unreadable mask, he slammed his elbow into his fruitless attackers face, breaking his nose and rendering him unconscious.

Picking his way over the limp shapes of six Aeesu-jin, careful not to step on any of the bodies, Gohan started to run. He still had a mission amoung many to complete.

Even after the boy vanished from their point of view, neither Joru or the sentry seated beneath him made any immidiate moves to follow him visually.

They were shell-shocked, through and through.

The sentry noisily licked his lips, "He.....he just......"

Though he was slow to respond, Joru regained himself quickly as he realized they no longer watching the boy--meaning, they no longer knew where he was.

"Where is he!?" the Tahch-jin yelled for perhaps the first time in his life.

"He's....," the sentry's eyes flashed over multiple surveylance perspectives, "He's....," All seeming to turn up nothing but empty halls and rooms, occationly catching a glimps of a brown tail tip, or a black boot heel as the boy moved from place to place too fast for the sentry or the computer to keep up with. "He's....." and finally, an image popped up. In it, the boy was charging down a narrow hall, and before their very eyes, the boy launched himself into the air in an extremely potent looking kick, his foot aimed at a door which he obviously intended to open with force.

The expression on his face spoke all too clearly that he was through sneaking around.

"Where is that?" Joru barked. The sentry glanced down at his data. He sweated.

A sudden, violent explotion rocked the room as the entire west wall blew inward, showering the Tahch-jin and the Aeesu-jin with clumps of debris.

"What the-" Joru yelled, but could find no means to word his question.

"He's here," the sentry said, slowly rising from his chair.

Joru doggedly scrambled to the other side of the room where he kept his chi gun. The sentry, his Aeesu-jin pride unable to stand being intimidated by an alien child any further, went the opposite direction--toward the destroyed wall. He vanished into the rising dust. Joru didn't look behind him. He had a feeling the fight would be brief; either the child was really as inconcievably strong as he appeared, in which case he would take out the sentry as easily as he had the others, or he was somehow just really lucky to have gotten as far as he had and would be crushed by the sentry in a matter of seconds.

There was a loud crash, the boy and the sentry both yelled. Joru grabbed hold of his chi gun and turned around in time to see the sentry, limp as a rag doll, fall forward from the dust cloud and land painfully on his side. Joru didn't know if he was alive, though it didn't particularly matter. He was an Aeesu-jin, after all, and they were evil.

Further thought on the topic became out of the question, as the dust slowly settled, revealing--at first--a dark silloette, then, slowly, color and substance seeped into the image, and thirty feet from where Joru stood, was Son Gohan.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Joru felt stark terror. Henning, brother, save me! If, wherever he was, the other Tahch-jin heard his silent plea, he didn't answer.

The man and the boy stare at eachother in the silence that filled the room. The cold air that rushed out of the air vent above them was loud, rudely disrupting the mood. Joru was trembling. Trembling like a child. But not this child. No, this child was the very image of fearlessness; hesitation could not be found in him. When the Tahch-jin looked into the boy's coal-black eyes, he saw something altogether alive. Glittering. The last remainders of dust in the air wispted over the boy's face and reflected in his large eyes.

As irrational as it seemed, though he felt surely his death was seconds away at the hands of a child, something in the back of his mind--or was it his heart?--didn't think he should fear the child. Those cold, impenetrable eyes seemed to glitter, and shine with intelligance. And laugh. If the light hit his eyes right, they laughed.

Though Joru had always been an excellent judge in character by merely looking people in the eyes, he felt surely he was wrong with what he beheld in this boy's soul. He was a killer. Had to be. His laughing, twinkling eyes were just an illution, ment to lull his victims into a false sense of security to make the kill all too easy.

With a shaky hand, Joru raised his hand, pointing his chi gun ahead, aiming between the boy's eyes. Both of them knew it would do no good.

"My name," Joru said, clenching his teeth to keep them from shattering, " is Joru Le'Armont. Who are you and what do you want?"

The boy blinked, slowly, measurely, "I am Son Gohan. You have two people being held here. I want them released."

"I can't do that," Joru said, slowly lowering his weapon; he didn't want so seem threatening, "They're not mine to release. They're my brother's."

Something within the boy seemed to be conflicting, he was trying to decide what to do next, "Where are they?"

Joru couldn't take it. Though he couldn't sence chi, the boy's power was strong on a physical sense--Joru's fur was standing on end, waving in the air as though he were underwater. Everything seemed full of static, when the Tahch-jin rubbed his hands together, bright sparks of static leapt from his palms. Just how strong was this kid? This was enough!

Joru raised his weapon, "You can't just come in here ordering me around, kid!"

The boy watched him, calculated, thought. It was strange, but though there seemed to be no hesitation in him, this kid, this Son Gohan, didn't seem to have any real plan at all. He was just making it up as he went along; a strategy that seemed to work well for him.

"Look," the boy said finally, "I don't really need you to tell me anything. I can find them both on my own, but if you shouldn't challenge me because I don't really want to have to kill you."

Hesitation. Joru was swelling with hesitation. Should he try to kill the kid? Should he give up and cooperate? Should he remain stubborn and argue? Should he stall the kid until help arrived? No, help probably wouldn't arrive--he had sent his sentries off to fight that blue giant. They were probably dead by now. There would be no help.

Gohan studied the man's face. This alien--Le'Armont?--was afraid. So afraid he was shaking, sweating, kami, Gohan could accually smell his fear. Though he was coming to terms with his fighting nature, he knew he never would or could want people to tremble at his feet.

"You're a Tahch-jin...right?"

Joru blinked in surprise at the question, "What?"

"I heard about some aliens called Tahch-jin on the planet. You're one, right?"

Joru narrowed his eyes, "The Tahch-jin are the most advanced people in the universe, we have no equals. Yes, I am a Tahch-jin, you will regret insulting us like this."

Gohan nodded, as though he understood something. He turned, and started to leave the room, "I have nothing more to say to you," he said to Joru, "Despite what you must think of me, I'm not a killer. I don't want to have to kill you, or anyone else, but I will if you try to stop me. Don't let your dignity get in the way of your judgment, because I've seen people's pride kill them just as surely as a blast of chi. The Tahch-jin may be a great people, but if they were the greatest, you wouln't be shaking like that."

It was more of an insult to Joru than Gohan had intended it to be. With sudden, speratic rage at his wounded dignity, the wounded dignity of his people, he raised his chi gun and pulled of three rounds into the boy's back.

Gohan didn't turn around or even stop walking. Two shots hit him in the back of his shoulders and bounced off harmlessly. The third shot grazed by his ear, burning off some of his hair. He didn't flinch. Once he was out of the room, he reached out for Freeza's chi, locked onto it, and started running again.

Joru Le'Armont glared after him.

So that was a Tahch-jin...

Strange, but Gohan found he wasn't interested in the man's people at all. He had been fascinated with the Aeesu-jin's culture, fascinated with the Nameksei-jin culture. He had hounded his father to tell him more about the people he met when he was supposedly lost in space, and had even, on rare occation, tried to find out more about the Saiya-jin culture with carefully worded questions from Vegita.

But he wasn't interested in the Tahch-jin. He had seen them before, in other people. Seen their pride and dignity too much in the Aeesu-jins and Saiya-jins. It was getting redundant. Did every alien species think they were better than the rest? The Nameksei-jin didn't seem to. Earthlings, Chikyuusei-jin, didn't, though perhaps they would if they accually knew aliens existed.

Gohan continued to bite his lip as he ran, thinking that perhaps all people were a little screwed up in their way of thinking in the end. It was kind of depressing.

"What's going on, now?" Freeza asked as he tenderly rubbed the deep purple bruise on his arm. Those other damn Aeesu-jin didn't have to hit him that hard.

"Bojack is still running around killing Aeesu-jin," Garlic said, his eyes closed to get a better view of the chi swirling around him, "But I can't feel the kid anymore. After he took out those six Aeesu-jin his chi went back down. It's impossible to detect."

Freeza ground his teeth together, "Why do you Earthlings hide your chi even when you're not trying to hide?"

Garlic ran his finger along the gash on his head in thought, "Habit more than anything. It's just something we normally do."

Freeza swirled his tail behind him, allowing himself to sink into th foulest of moods. He did not like being pushed around, confined, abused, mocked and everything else he had to endure since being captured.

In his sudden rise of anger, he struck the bars that lined his and Garlic's cell with his fist as hard as he could. Though the bar didn't bend--it was ment to keep people possessing Aeesu-jin strength retained--it did fill the cell and the room it was in with a long, sad ringing sound. Flinching and squeezing his eyes shut Garlic yelled, "Must you do that!? Do you have any idea how sensitive these ears are? Ung, I think my heads about to explode."

Feeling almost smug dispite his predicament, Freeza grinned. At least he hurt someone.

Suddenly, the door to their cell burst inward, and the limp form of their Aeesu-jin guard came skidding to a stop at Freeza's feet.

Garlic and Freeza looked up in alarm as Son Gohan entered the cell behind the guard. Except a few bruises on his arms and face, and a long tear that spanned his pant-leg (there was some bleeding here), he was virtually unharmed. His hair was wild, wilder than it looked before, his tail swept behind him in a dramatic arc, and his eyes gleamed with intensity; the boy was out of breath but seemed full of spirit. He looked more warrior-esk than he ever had before. Now, Freeza recognized, he really looked like a Saiya-jin.

"I thought if I looked for Freeza's chi I'd find Garlic," Gohan seemed to say to himself more than either of them; then, addressing Freeza he said, "Good thing you don't know how to hide your chi, or things would be alot harder."

By now, Freeza and Garlic had regained their composure.

"'Bout time you came," Garlic said, and with that he walked almost haughtily out of the cell. Freeza followed without a comment.

Still standing in the cell, regaining his breath, Gohan stared after them with wide-eyes. He had been around prideful people like Vegita enough to know they never showed gratitude. Still, every single flaming time he expected a 'thank you.'

With a final intake of air, he exited the cell, aware he would probably have to do all the fighting if they were attacked again.

Life really was just chocked full of dissapointments.

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