Contradicting Mission

Part 17

Someone was heading toward Sunow's house.

Deep in his own thoughts, Gohan almost didn't catch the twinge of chi. He had long since lost sight of Freeza and Bojack, purposely, and was trying to gain control of his nearly shredded thoughts, trying to move certain emotions--fear, anger, humiliation--to the back of his mind to permit him to be capable of functioning under his current situation. He could cope with the feelings later, when he was home and away from this mess. If he ever got home.

He wondered momentarily if that dark place in his mind would ever fill up and spill over with his dark emotions, before he had a chance to quietly cope with it. It'd probably happened to people before. That was probably where insane people came from. He shivered and decided he should concentrate on where he was going. After nearly three days, it still wasn't a time to think. Just concentrate on the situation at hand...

Somewhere ahead, he felt the warm, familiar chi of Sunow, and the smaller chi's of Eesie and Forester, and he remembered his plans to get a warm bath and a drink of water. Not much to ask for, but it could certainly be uplifting. He still felt miserable, shredded, humiliated, hurt and ultimatly helpless, but he was trying to give himself a light at the end of the tunnel, something to look foreward to. He needed it.

He didn't know exactly which way he was going, but his previous successes in finding his destination had built up a tentative confidence in him, and he wove his way through the halls--occationally having to 'excuse me, pardon me' his way through crowds of silently moving packs of Aeesu-jin, reaching ahead to Sunow's chi like a shining beacon in the dark, leading his way.

That's when he noticed a battle chi, rising to it's peak then staying at its elevation. Someone was preparing for a fight. Unfamiliar, but had the tang of an Aeesu-jin, it was heading in Sunow's general direction. Fast. Gohan forced himself to stay calm. On the heels of the first chi was a second, large and strong as the first. Then two, three, four more followed, rising to incredible heights. The boy made himself keep walking as he came across a more crowded hall, trying to keep as low of a profile as he could. There were more chi's rising, still. Now there was ten, then there was thirteen.

With a final push, he had cleared the busling Aeesu-jin and, as luck would have it, he came across a far more empty hall. Only two or three Aeesu-jin were here, all too small to be a threat. But Gohan was concerned. He began to walk faster. By the time the battle chi's stopped popping up, there was a whopping twenty of them. Most had the distinct Aeesu-jin after-taste to them, but some--perhaps six or so--weren't Aeesu-jin. They weren't anything Gohan had ever felt before. But they were strong.

Gohan picked his speed up to a jog. All twenty chi's were definatly heading toward Sunow, there was no mistaking it. And his Aeesu-jin friend had no clue the threat was coming. Gohan didn't know if he would be able to make it in time, even in an all out run. The chances of anyone getting taken prisoner this time was slim.

The boy began sprinting, feeling around to see where Bojack and Freeza were. Not close enough, and even if they did make it to Sunow's before him, what help would they be? They wouldn't know the enemy was coming until it was too late, and Gohan already knew that Freeza wasn't strong enough to contend with the enemy, and Bojack would have no inclination to help Sunow or his family.

Garlic. Garlic would feel the enemy coming. Whoever the chi's belonged to, they weren't trying to conceal their power in any way, and they were as evident as a bright sun on a cloudless day. But what could they do, even with a warning in advance? Their best chance would be to leave the apartment and try to lose them in the twisting, turning halls.

Gohan had a bad feeling about this. He ran at top speed.

Garlic's eyes snapped open and he shot up in bed, throwing his blankets off. In an instant, he was awake and standing, at first wondering what had awakened him. A pressure. There was an actual heaviness to the air, one only Garlic could feel, electrical, powerful. So heavy he could hardly recognize it as chi--no, more than one chi--and when it had dawned on him that it was chi, he could only stand in amazement. He counted, though sorting out one from another proved a laborous task, for they moved as one.

There was twenty of them. They were close and getting closer, the gremlin felt an actual chill as he tried to fill himself with a hope that it was just some group of powered up Aeesu-jin taking a stroll. All twenty were sporting battle chi's. They were expecting a real fight, or a large massacre. Or both.

Chances were, Garlic mused uneasily, they were coming here. And by the time they were through, there would be no one left standing. Even as an immortal, Garlic feared death in a primal sense; he was afraid.

He hurriedly pulled on his cape and shawl, trying to deal with his macabre thoughts of what the future might hold, all the while he felt as though he couldn't breath under the weight of the approaching chi's. They were coming faster now, whoever they were; running if not flying.

He hurried out of his room and down the hall, stopping in the living room where he found Sunow, still busily working at trying to break into the files labeled "Tahch-jin."

The Aeesu-jin looked up, "Garlic-san?"

Forcing rising panic into a silent grim the gremlin said, "There's a fleat of people coming this way, very quickly. They feel like they're looking for a fight."

Sunow rose--painfully--from his seat, wincing at his bad arm, "Is it Backlash?!"

Garlic narrowed his eyes in annoyance, "How the hell would I know? Do Backlash people have something special about their chi?"

Ignoring the quip the Aeesu-jin yelled down the hall, "Forester, Eesei! Come quick, we have to get out of here!" He turned back and shut off his computer, saying to himself, "It probably is Backlash. They're coming to kill me and my children-"

"Actually, they're probably looking for Son Gohan and Bojack. Those two are the ones that have caused the most damage, though it's probably little consolation to you. They'll kill you anyway."

Sunow swallowed and waited with growing dread for his children to come to him, "Hurry!"

Forester came running from his room first, stopping to go into Eesie's. He came rushing out carrying her, and she put up little resistance. She hadn't spoken once since coming back from her lessons with Son Gohan, but now was not the time to worry about her.

"What is it, Papa?" Forester asked, instantly recognizing the look of fear on his father's face.

"We have to get out of here," was Sunow's only response as he turned to head for the door.

"Why?" Forester persued.

"Now!"

Sunow seldom yelled, and Forester didn't ask anything further as he ran for the door where Garlic and Sunow were preparing to exit. The Aeesu-jin boy didn't make it to the door, however, for before he was ten feet from it, it exploded inward with a flash. Garlic and Sunow nearly caught the blast dead on, and were both thrown against the far wall of the room. Forester, not as close to the door as the adults, was thrown to the floor. Eesie, in his arms, didn't seem to react.

Forester struggled to sit up, only to see through the clearing smoke that the apartment was being swamped with giants; nothing was clear, they were just moving shadows. But Forester recognized many of the siloettes to be Aeesu-jin. Large, powerful Aeesu-jin, carrying behind them long, thick, deadly tails. Others entering entirely different, as the Aeesu-jin boy made out something akin to fins standing up on one of the intruder's heads, while another seemed to lumber akwardly on it's hind legs, it's entire body covered in long, swaying hair. The room was begining to fill, and behind the intruders Forester could make out even more. Too many to count. There was no chance of escape.

He scrambled backward, not trying to stand up, holding tightly to his sister. He looked behind him, searching for his father and Garlic. As the smoke finished clearing, Forester first caught sight of his father. He was in the corner of the room, probably hadn't moved, and he didn't look good. Though he was conscious, and didn't seem to have been too badly damaged from the explotion of the door, the impact of hitting the wall had jarred his broken arm. Presently, Sunow could do little more than grip his agonizing limb and try not to scream or pass out. He wouldn't be fighting in this battle.

Forester searched the room further until he found Garlic. The sight was disheartening. When the door exploded, the gremlin had caught the blast the hardest and, unprepared and stunned, he had been thrown across the room and into the wall just too hard. He must have hit his head first, and been unable to compensate before his body came crashing in behind him. He just hit too hard. His neck must have broken or something--Forester was ill-trained to give an accurate medical conclution--for where he lay, crumpled on the floor, his head was cocked at an unnatrual angle.

He looked very dead.

With a sudden, horrified thought, Forester realized he was all that was left.

A large, strong hand appeared suddenly, grabbing hold of his arm and jerked him roughly to his feet, knocking Eesei from his arms. The little Aeesu-jin girl scuttled across the floor to lean against the wall, curling up. Forester tried to struggle, but his arm was bent behind his back, he had no hope of contending with eight hundred pounds of Aeesu-jin muscle. He stopped fighting before he was hurt.

Standing before him, his massive hands on his hips, was one of the most bizarre looking aliens Forester had ever seen.. His rough-skinned face, starting with a massive under-bite, ended abruptly at his brow, the rest of his head sloping back into a mass of long, dark hair. From his jutting jaw stood two large canine teeth that poked out from his bottom lip and overlapped his top. He was a frightening thing to behold. Forester was trembling.

When the large, hairy alien spoke, his voice was gravely and heavily accented, "Where is the boy?"

"What boy?!" Forester spat, even through his terror he managed a voice of poison. He was an Aeesu-jin. He would not be intimidated.

The ogre-looking creature narrowed it's small eyes and raised his hand inches from the Aeesu-jin boy's face. Forester saw his hair knuckles flex, then, from the mass of hair on his fingers, four three-inch black claws sprung, one for each finger but his thumb. They were shiny and gleamed as though they had just been polished.

"We can always do this the hard way," the ogre said. Forester couldn't find his voice as he stared at the razor edges of the beast-man's claws, "We didn't come here for you. If you tell us, we can let you go, but if you don't cooperate....well, you will give us the information we want eventually."

Whoever was pinning his arm to his back tightened his grip, and Forester was almost certain his arm was already half-torn out of its socket. He nodded his understanding.

"Where is the boy?"

"You mean Son Gohan?" Forester asked, though he couldn't think of who else they would be talking about.

"We have a name. Yes, Son Gohan," the ogre held the point of one claw half a centimeter from the boy's eye, "Where is he?"

"Ah...Papa said....he....why?" Forester's attention was so riveted on that single claw, so very close to blinding him, and his vocabularly left him, perhaps taking his wits with it.

"My boss is looking for him, but if you keep trying to change the subject I should warn you I have little patience so-"

"Heng!" Forester said when the ogre made a move closer to him, moving the claw of his attention.

The claw withdrew and the Aeesu-jin boy gasped--he hadn't even realized he was holding his breath.

"Heng?"

"Papa said he went to see Heng." Forester closed his eyes, his head sagging. Was he so quick to betray someone? He didn't know Gohan very well, it wasn't like he was a friend or anything, right? Besides, if he told these people what they wanted to know, perhaps they really would let him, his sister and his father live. He had his family to think about!

"Where is Heng?"

Forester looked up at him, "I don't know. No one does. No one even knows what Heng is."

The ogre looked to one of the Aeesu-jin intruders, who nodded his head in confermation.

An explotion erupted outside the apartment, sending the assailants still in the hall way crashing to the floor.

**

Gohan was fearing the worst as he rounded the last bend to reach his destination. Sunow's chi was slowly fading, Eesei's was hardly more than a whisper, Forester's chi was fluxing rapidy from what Gohan could only guess to be fear, and Garlic....well, he was probably just hiding his chi.

A large crowd of huge Aeesu-jin were congragated around Sunow's apartment door, there was no mistaking that these were the people, these were the wild and high battle chi's. These were the attackers. These were the people who were going to kill Sunow and his children.

With lack of a better plan--and thereby the time to come up with one--he gathered his chi and blasted the crowd of warriors before they even saw him coming, and by being caught by surprise, they didn't have time to react. As potent of a blast as it was, born of the anger and concern Gohan had for his friends, there was damage. The blast detonated on impact with the first Aeesu-jin it came across, obliterating him on the spot, the beings around him were thrown to the ground from the force of the explotion, then shoved back to the ground from an after shock.

Still trying to use his initial surprise, Gohan gathered a second scortching blast, bloody-red and incredibly bright; he launched it, and the assailants who were rising back to their feet were thrown down again.

By now, his element of surprise had been burned to cinders and the huge mass of warriors all turned, devoting their attention to him. They were well trained, as the boy could tell from the instand they attacked, for instead of blindly rushing forward they branched off in four groups, three flying in low, coming at him close to the ground, three more flying high, hugging the ceiling with their backs, three to the right, and three to the left. They were fast.

Gohan was forced to act faster. He gathered a third blast, more destructive than deadly, and thew it at the ground. It erupted in blinding flames, burning and melting the floor, walls and cealing and compramising visuals. Gohan didn't need to see, for he saw their location by feeling their chi.

He went right through the middle, diving between the twelve attackers and into the middle of eight more. He met them with his boots, driving his foot into and through a giant Aeesu-jin's head in an explotion of crimson and gray matter. Gohan's stomach rolled two complete circles, and he turned away from the grisly sight--only to come face to face with one of the most frightening aliens he had ever seen. Hairy and huge, his brow sloping backward while his jaw protruded with two giant teeth, he looked like a perverted cross between a wart-hog, an ogre and a demon straight from hell.

His shock neutralized his defenses, and the hairy monster took advantage of it, driving a gnarled, thick fist into his stomach, into his guts. Gohan tried to raise his defenses back up, lower his body into a workable fighting stance, and choke on the blood rising in the back of his throat at the same time. He wasn't fast enough, and the ogre slammed his other fist into the boy's head.

Mind spinning, Gohan forced himself to leap backward, but was too uncoordinated to control his landing. His back slammed into the wall behind him, knocking the wind out of him. This fight was not going well, and he couldn't come up with any trick that would....wait!

With another burst of energy, Gohan threw himself through the door and into Sunow's apartment, now vacated of the attackers as they came outside to fight. Not expecting the boy to rush inside, where closed quarters would further hinder him, they couldn't stop him before he got in. The door had been blasted off already, but the boy managed to spin in midair and blast burning red chi through the doorway at the attackers trying to follow him.

He landed on his back inside, but leapt to his feet instantly, ignoring all kinds of hellish pain flooding his body. He looked around, saw Forester.

"Do you know how to center chi?" Gohan asked him, blasting a second time through the door way to keep the attackers out. It wouldn't last, for his own blasts were making the doorway bigger. His power was draining through the agony in his ribs and he didn't know how much longer he would be able to make blasts strong enough to hurt them.

Forester stammered, "Not very well, I-"

Gohan looked across the room for Sunow...he wasn't in any shape to help. Blasting once more through the doorway, Gohan saw that it was the last time--the hole was too big, and the enemy was starting to enter through the cloud of smoke, "Where's Garlic?"

"He's-"

"I'm here," Garlic said.

Forester stared at him in shock, "But you were-"

His words were drowned out as a battle cry came from the enemy as they charged into the apartment. Gohan rushed forward to meet them again, almost instantly being struck in the stomach again. For all it was worth, he gave more than he recieved, his feet and arms never pausing as they blocked and struck faster than vipers, hitting anything they could. But he was wearing out, and the enemy kept coming.

"Garlic!" The boy yelled, ducking under a fist that would have broken his jaw, "Make a blast! Don't shoot it, just make one!"

"What?" The gremlin asked, now sure he heard him right.

Gohan gasped as he was whipped full in the back by an Aeesu-jin's tail, his breath temporarily taken away. Then Gohan felt something brush his tail. He had moved at just the right time, as luck would have it, for one of the attackers--a scaly, reptilian looking alien--had made a grab for his tail. A second slower, and Gohan would have lost the fight.

They were trying to grab his tail! How did they know about his weakness? Not a time to think. Never a time to think. He was hit in the back of his knee and he almost crumpled. In desperation he wrapped his tail around his waist--it felt very akward there, but at least it was harder to get to--and started driving harder at the enemy.

"Just make one! Chi! Now! As bright as you can!" He choked as he was hit in the stomach again, "Brighter than the sun!"

It was hopeless! No matter how hard he lashed out at the enemy, he couldn't drive them back, for they were coming in at all sides, attacking his back even as they attacked his front, and he never seemed to be able to turn fast enough to block them all. He was losing. If this didn't work....

The room suddenly got much brighter as Garlic--though he didn't understand why--made a blast so bright it hurt to look at. He held it above his head, "Alright!"

Gohan couldn't look over his shoulder, but he knew it was time. He curled his legs up to his chest, then heaved them downward, and, using an Aeesu-jin's chest as a spring-board, launched himself backward, temporarly out of the murderous throng.

He landed, already gathering his chi in just a way, his fingers splayed across his eyes. He had never done this before, though his father had told him how it was done. The elements weren't right, for they required a sun to work, but hopefully Garlic's ball of chi would do. Either way, the boy knew he had to try it.

Throwing doubt to the wind he shouted, "Taio-ken!"

To the boy's relief, the room exploded in a blinding light, reflecting from Garlic's ball of chi, centered through Gohan's fingers, and filling the room, burning everyone's eyes. The attackers froze as blindness siezed them, clawing at their faces as though it might return their sight.

Gohan sagged on his feet for a second in relief, wanting to believe that he had won already and could pass-out and sleep, but he knew it wasn't so. Collecting his chi once more, he prepared to kill them in their moment of helplessness, using every last molocule of will power to staunch his conscience enough to do it.

One of the blinded intruders exploded in a bright, golden blast. Gohan froze. A second attacker's chest exploded outward, a bright ball of chi blasting through his chest and into a third. As he fell, Gohan could see who was standing behind him. Bojack had arrived.

And the weight of the massacre Gohan was preparing for was lifted from his shoulders, as the Biraju-jin took on the task. The room erupted in one bright blast after another as Bojack dealt death willingly to the intruders, one bright blast after another, each myriad blast followed by another until the entire room was lit up so brightly is was as though Gohan had done a second Taio-ken. And when the light finally died down, the room had been cleared of the attackers; bodies, some only pieces left, others charred to powder, littered the floor.

Bojack stood in the middle of the room, surveying the damage--his blasts had destroyed the walls, floor and cealing as well as the enemy. In the doorway, Freeza stood, his eyes rather wide as he saw the size of some of the dead Aeesu-jin.

"Well," Bojack said in the silence that followed, his eyes never leaving Gohan's, "Looks like I just saved your life, again."

Gohan was unable to react as he would have liked to. He would have liked to kill Bojack right then and there, but that option was out for many reasons. He would at least have liked to say something perhaps nonchalant--though it certainly wasn't one of his strong points--like "I could have done it myself, anyway." But he was unable to do that, either.

Infact, it was all he could do to just keeping his feet under him. As he breathed raggedly in and out, his knees shaking under him, it was impossible to hide the fact that he had been hurt. Badly. And for all he was worth, he didn't even bother trying to hide it. He was pretty sure nothing was broken, healing would only be a matter of a day or two, but his body was still flooding with natual painkillers and burnt out adrenaline that he wasn't even sure where his feet were until he looked down.

His gi was torn and splattered with blood--both his and the enemy's--, his arms were bleeding from multiple places, others dark and purple with rising bruises. He was sure his face wasn't any better off.

He tried to take a breath to speak, he had to say something, but on inhale his chest rattled loudly and he felt a cough wriggling up from inside. Unable to surpress it, he covered his mouth to try to stifle it. He coughed hard, his entire body lurching with effort, making his chest ich deep down. When he regained his breath and pulled his hand away from his mouth, he found that it was splattered with blood. He had coughed up blood.

Internal injuries.

"Son Gohan didn't need any help!" Forester said, and Gohan wanted to thank him profusely.

Freeza half-grinned, though he looked semi-pale. Seeing piles of his own kind dead was something all-together different than seeing an alien race dead. Still, he was able to keep his voice even as he spoke to Forester, "You know that's not true. True, half the bodies in here are the kid's victims, he wouldn't have been able to kill them all. Just look at him."

Everyone's eyes turned toward Gohan, who could only breath in and out, taking every flood of new pain with each breath as well as he could. His arms hung at his sides, limp, as well as his tail, which had fallen off his waist, slid down his hips, and now hung behind him, useless as a rope.

Sunow, leaning heavily on the wall, slowly stood up. Using his tail as a third leg, he managed to get onto his feet and remain there, "I want-" He winced and held his broken arm, "I want to thank you both. Son Gohan, Bojack, it seems you've saved me and my family once again."

"Hrmph," Bojack said. Being thanked bothered him more than he would have liked.

Forester looked at Garlic, "You were dead. Your neck was broken or something, I saw you."

The gremlin twisted his neck one way, then another; an audible popping sound came from his vertibre, "I don't die. It was just a temporary, painful expiriance."

"Papa?" Forester said, not wanting to think about it, taking hold of his father's arm as he tried to start walking, "We should still get out of here. I'm sure that Backlash or whoever else is after us will be sending reinforcements once they realized the first group failed."

Sunow shook his head, "Give me half an hour. I'm sure the enemy won't come that soon after the first group, we should be safe for a while. I can't really move well at the moment, and once we're out in public, we'll have to be able to move quickly."

It was all the leave Gohan wanted or needed. Slowly, painfully, he moved across the ruined livingroom and down the hall to the bathroom. He was going to get that water and bath, by gum, and no one was going to stop him now.

The bathroom door closed behind him, and everyone in the living room heard the water running in the tub.

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

*Taio-ken is the Solar Flare in the dub.