Chapter 23

It was late night when a figure landed at the Capsule Corporation. It stood for a moment, arms crossed, head lowered, as if in thought. Raising its head, it regarded several buildings before settling on one at the compound's edge. Its arms fell to its side, and it took one, two determined steps toward it. Then, without even swaying first, the figure quietly folded and collapsed on the dew-wet grass.

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Gohan found him spread-eagle under a bluff, looking up at the moon-less sky as if something there interested him intensely. Kneeling, the boy lowered a hand to his shoulder. It came back sticky with purple-blue fluid. "Oh, Mr. Piccolo-" he whispered.

"Hey, kid." The gruff voice was casual, if barely audible. "Just in the neighborhood?"

"What happened?"

Piccolo started to answer, coughed up fluids, turned his head and spat. "Oh, nothing," he said when he could. "That Vegamite guy, though; he's not bad. Doesn't hold back like your dad does. Which is a lesson for you, kid. Always attack at full force when it counts. It's-" more coughing and spitting "-darned effective."

Gohan twisted his head, looking up big-eyed at the silent silhouette that landed behind him, standing a few feet away. "Krillin-"

Krillin nodded. "I'll go see if any senzu beans are ready."

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Bulma woke up with the distinct feeling something was wrong. She took a half-sleeping minute to tell herself she was mistaken. Then the soft tone came again, and she was wide awake. She looked at the panel on the wall and sighed; there was a problem with the security bots. Wondering why everything seemed to be happening in the middle of the night lately, she crept out of bed.

Going to the window, she opened it and leaned out. On the lawn below several of the sentry robots were gathered in a semi-circle, their oculars turned down at something on the grass and beeping quietly at each other, for all the world as if they were wondering what to do. Grabbing a robe and tugging on her running shoes, Bulma raced down stairs and out the door, wondering if a stray dog had somehow ended up on the property. Reaching the little clique of robots, she looked down and sighed again. Figures. Everything's Saiyan related these days...

Kneeling, Bulma reached out and gripped one solid arm, shaking it. "Vegeta, what are you doing out here?" He was too heavy to budge. He and Piccolo talked for a minute and then took off together; had they gone on some sort of warrior drinking binge? Odd, she didn't think either was the type. Grimacing, she leaned over and patted one cheek. "Upsy daisy, Prince. Party's over."

His face was slippery. When she looked at her fingers in the blinking lights of the surrounding sentries, she saw why.

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About thirty seconds after Krillin forced the senzu bean down Piccolo's throat, Piccolo gasped, shuddered, and sat straight up. "I hate those things," he said. "What an aftertaste!"

Gohan wrapped his arms around as much of the broad chest as he could. Patting him absently on the back, Piccolo looked up at Krillin and rhetorically asked, "Vegeta booked, eh?"

"He's not here. Is that what happened? You fought Vegeta?"

"We were just 'sparring,'" said Piccolo, showing his fangs. "I take my 'sparring' a lot more seriously than Goku does, that's all. Almost nailed him with Ma Kankou Sappou, but Veggie's good, boys. He dodged, although his ears are going to be ringing for a while. Gohan, stop trying to squeeze me to death, I'm fine!"

Gohan stood back, still looking troubled. "I didn't mean for you to fight him," he said.

"I needed to fight him, Gohan. It was the only way to determine what my options are. And, alas, what I discovered is that my options are few and far between at the moment. But give me a couple more years to train and - well; we'll see who needs senzu beans then."

"Someone should be fighting the Saiyans," said Krillin, crossly. "Tenshin's up north pouting, Yamcha's so busy moping the planet could blow up around him, and Goku..." He shook his head. "Goku... He's training with Vegeta. Like we should just forget they came here to destroy Earth! Everything's mixed up, Piccolo."

Piccolo gave the little monk a glance heavy with irony. "Tell me about it." Leaning forward, he said to Gohan, "Kid, what are you doing out here?"

Looking as if he had tasted something even more sour than senzu beans, "I snuck out after Mom was asleep," muttered Gohan. "I'm getting real good at 'sneaking.'"

"Good boy," said Piccolo. "But you should've sent Goku. I'm in the mood for another round and kicking his Saiyan tail would suit me just fine..."

"Dad went to Heaven," said Gohan.

Piccolo knew better than to hope that was a metaphysical comment on Goku's current state of existence. "What's he doing there? Kami see another fleet of evil space aliens heading this way?"

Krillin snorted. "Oh, they'd probably be long lost family, too."

"He goes there at night, sometimes," Gohan informed his sensei. "He has to talk to someone," he added, vaguely.

One of the antennae bobbed up.

Krillin said, alarm in his voice, "Piccolo, I'm sure Goku has a really good reason for being there..."

"Oh, I'm sure he does, too. I'm sure he has lots of good reasons for lots of things he's been doing lately. Think I'll go ask him what some of them might happen to be." He stood up, casually shaking off blood from wounds that no longer existed. "You two coming?"

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How anyone a foot shorter than Yamcha could weigh twice as much as he did was beyond her, thought Bulma. And so was lifting the little guy. After tugging futilely on Vegeta's ankle in an effort to drag him, Bulma went looking for Radditz to find the other Saiyan's Capsule House empty; he had taken off in a flare of ki energy just before Piccolo showed up and, obviously, hadn't come back yet. Muttering in annoyance, she went back to Vegeta. She gave the sentry robots careful, exact orders. Several of them surrounded the Prince's body, extending disarmed pseudolimbs and holding Vegeta a few inches off the ground, rolling with him just behind Bulma as she led the way to the outbuilding that once housed Radditz. Once there, a soft beeping turned her back; the robots couldn't negotiate the steps that led into the infirmary and were waiting for further instructions. Making a mental note to correct that particular flaw, Bulma activated some of the robots in the building, and a careful ballet ensued as the sentry robots outside passed the Prince off to the ones on the other side of the steps.

Fitting Vegeta through the doorway provided another challenge. The robots didn't understand the concept of single file. She finally shut all but two down, and again had to instruct them carefully so that they took Vegeta through the door long-ways; he was lucky, she thought crossly, he didn't get decapitated against the doorframe on the first try. Hoping he didn't have any spinal injuries that all this moving about aggravated, she directed the robots over to the regeneration tank. The clear bubble was rolled back, and the robots were able to maneuver Vegeta's body into it, their pseudolimbs extended as far as they would go and their gears whirring as if the Saiyan's weight were subjecting them to stresses beyond their operating parameters. "Just put him down," Bulma told them in irritation. The robots made more beeping noises then, to Bulma's surprise, simply retracted their psuedolimbs. "Gently!" she shouted, but it was too late; the Prince, after seeming to hang in mid-air for a second, fell from a foot above the tank's floor and hit with a painful-sounding 'thump.'

Well, if he didn't have spinal injuries before, he does now. Sighing, Bulma stepped into the tank and was suddenly confronted with another realization; she didn't have any idea how the darned thing worked. Despairing, she sat on the floor next to Vegeta, fighting the urge to cry, momentarily out of ideas.

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Goku went to Heaven as soon as he realized the ki energies he sensed gathering two continents away belonged to Vegeta and Piccolo. He sat cross-legged on the platform trying to meditate, forcing himself not to interfere. But ultimately meditation had not been enough, and he made contact with Kaiou-sami to meet for a training session.

The Goku that walked out of the Room of Spirit and Time was considerably more battered than the Goku that walked in seconds earlier. Of course, hours had passed on the other side of the door, hours Goku spent practicing techniques he didn't dare use in Earth's dimension for fear Vegeta would sense the too-high energy levels and come looking for what-ever was radiating such a high ki. Goku did more than train in the Room of Space and Time; he also sought counseling from his other-worldly sensei, wanting reassurance that what they were doing was the appropriate action, that challenging Vegeta to an all-out duel would be counter-productive no matter how much it was what Goku himself wanted...

And he wanted to fight Vegeta, not for any particular reason, but just for the thrill of the physical combat itself. Which frightened him; fighting without cause was what Saiyans did. Goku was determined not to be Saiyan. So he held back during their sparring sessions, gritting his teeth as he did so, his Saiyan genes at war with his Earthling upbringing, hoping that Vegeta wouldn't sense his true strength, hoping that Vegeta would...

Some trace of approaching ki energy shot across his thoughts. His head snapping up, Goku looked toward the edge of Heaven where Kami leaned against his great wooden stick. "Yes," said Kami, "company."

Hardly were the words spoken when there was the swirl of displaced air, and two figures hung in mid-air just outside Heaven's border. After a quick glance at Piccolo, a grim-faced Krillin landed on the platform to politely greet Kami-sami and Mr. Popo. But Piccolo, as ever, refused to cross the boundary. Gohan was cradled in one of the massive pink-and-green arms, looking both tired and worried, wearing the little uniform that had Goku's symbol on the front, Piccolo's on the back.

Goku looked into the sharp features of the former Demon King and, for the first time in many weeks, felt a faint twitch of alarm. Piccolo's return gaze was hard-edged and sardonic. "Goku. I'm crushed. You never write. You never call. And now I see why. You've been seeing Kami behind my back." He eyed the torn gi, the unmistakable signs of a tussle. "It is Kami you're here to see, isn't it?"

Ignoring his taunting, "You shouldn't have fought Vegeta," Goku said.

"You shouldn't be playing with Vegeta. Or should I say, toying with? Goku, you do realize that the Saiyans aren't off on holiday while Veggie-matic hangs around the planet playing paddy-cake with you and scaring your son half to death? They're off purging a planet. Killing a few million or billion folks more or less like us, with hopes, dreams, schemes..." Goku's mouth tightened, and he looked away. "Oh, so you have figured that out? I guess you're not as brain dead as we all assumed."

His brows drawn down crossly, Gohan whispered something to Piccolo.

"Kid, I always talk mean to your daddy. But I'll try to keep it professional. Goku, why haven't you blown Vegeta away? You could. You should."

"That wouldn't solve anything," said Goku after a moment. "The Saiyans would still exist. If Vegeta died here, Earth would become a target again."

"So the Saiyans loop around Earth on their way to destroy other planets, and you're okay with that?"

"No!" snapped Goku. He stopped, took a deep breath, and said again, "No. No, I am not okay with that."

"That's why he comes here," said Kami. "He seeks guidance and reassurance that we're doing the right thing."

"And he gets that from you?" Piccolo smiled. "Goku, you fool. Do you think God is so infallible, so wise? He can't be that smart, can he? After all, he created me."

"Stop calling Daddy names," said Gohan, peevishly.

Piccolo looked down at Gohan and blinked, as if surprised the boy still nestled in the crook of his arm. "Right, I said I was going to be professional. Sorry, kid." He gave Goku another long, hard stare. "You think destroying Vegeta would be such a bad thing because it would bring the Saiyans down on us, Goku? Perhaps you just need to consider the full breadth of the possibilities. You're Saiyan, remember? And the Saiyans respect power. You've got that, and then some; more power than any living Saiyan. You could become the Saiyan Empire, Goku, molding the Saiyans into a force that would protect planets, not destroy them. You would command the single greatest force for good in the Universe."

His voice was gentle, persuasive, compelling. Goku took in a deep breath, then let it out and looked at Piccolo sadly. "I once turned down the chance to be God, Piccolo; do you think the Universe would tempt me? Every time I think you've changed, you say something like that, and I have to remember what you were."

"What I am," said Piccolo. "This is my planet, Goku, and I have plans for it. The plans have not changed." The back of his free hand gently touched Gohan's cheek. "The reasons have; but not the plans." He released Gohan suddenly; the boy yelped, his arms waving, then he hovered, uncertainly. "Go to your father," said Piccolo. "I'll see you for training after school tomorrow."

Gohan hesitated, looking at his sensei with troubled eyes. "Mr. Piccolo," he said, "you don't have to give me Earth. I'd rather have a pony."

"Your mom doesn't have any place for a pony," Piccolo told him, one corner of his mouth curving up. "She thinks a pet would distract you from your studies, remember? And you should study, Gohan. I need my heir to be smart." He reached out with one clawed hand and gently pushed the boy toward Heaven's platform; after a minute, Gohan drifted over to his father, tried to touch down softly but misjudged the landing and sat at Goku's feet. Piccolo smiled at Goku, sharp teeth bared. "I'll see you at the next Budokai. And after that, we'll see who has the right to decide Earth's future. Coming?" he asked Krillin.

Krillin looked at Goku, grimly, then back at Piccolo. "Don't read anything into this," he told the latter, "but, yes. I'll come for a while. Someone has to make sure the planet's safe." The auras charged up around the two; Goku felt as if Piccolo's smirk was emblazoned in his brain. He watched the energy trails fade into the distance, then sat by Gohan. "I'd take good care of a pony," the little boy told his father, earnestly.

"I know you would, Gohan. But Piccolo's right; we don't have room." He reached out and touched his son's cheek, much as Piccolo had done earlier. It was hard to remember, with everything that had happened in the last few months, that Gohan was just a child. A very, very young child. Goku looked up at Kami-sama. "Piccolo's fooled us. How did he do that? There's no malice in his aura, Kami."

"What he once planned out of hate and vengeance he's now doing out of love," said Kami-sama, thoughtfully. "His reasons are pure, Goku."

"Great. So are mine. I'm letting the Saiyans continue on their homicidal way in the hopes that they'll change eventually, and Piccolo's trying to come up with ways to stop them. When did everything get so complicated?"

"Piccolo can't stop them now and he knows it. I think he will not interfere any more, at least as long as Gohan is not directly threatened. And if you killed Vegeta, you would buy Earth a reprieve of, what, six months? You are stronger than the Saiyan Prince, but you are not stronger than all of the Saiyans, Goku. They would come here in numbers, and they would overwhelm you. Earth would perish. And if, through some astonishing twist of fate, you did destroy all the Saiyans, we would face a greater threat, one you are no where near being strong enough to face."

"I know," said Goku. "Kaiou-sama told me, over and over again. The Saiyans are all that stand between us and Freeza. A choice of evils, Kami-sami. I hate this."

"Goku, you must trust me. As Guardian of the Earth my main concern is for this planet, but I am not without universal concerns. We may be able to turn the Saiyans yet."

"How? Kami-sama, Vegeta's crazy about Bulma, but Saiyans are so emotionally repressed he doesn't have a clue. And what if he does realize it? He's not going to suddenly stop being Saiyan. It'll be like Piccolo; he'll keep on killing planet after planet, expanding his Empire for his heirs instead of for the glory of the hunt. Different reasons; same results."

"I do not expect Vegeta to change," said Kami-sama, prosaically. "I do not expect the Saiyan Empire to halt in its tracks. I expect many, many more planets will die, both during Vegeta's tenure as Heir to the Saiyan throne and after he becomes King of the Saiyan Empire."

After a pause, "I'm so confused," said Goku, plaintively, sounding a lot like his son.

"These are not easy things to live with," agreed Kami-sama, the lines deepening in his face. "Yet change is happening, Goku. Trust me," he said again.

"I trust you," said Goku. He looked down at Gohan; the little boy was leaning against his arm, almost asleep. He gathered Gohan up and got to his feet, hoping Chi-chi wasn't awake and waiting to scream at him for irresponsibly keeping Gohan out late. He sighed.

Stirring slightly, "Don't let Vegeta take me," Gohan murmured softly. "I don't wanna go without you."

Goku wrapped his son in his arms. "If we go to Vejiitasei, we go together," he said.

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Now this was fun.

Vegeta watched Bulma from under his lashes, fighting the urge to smirk, wondering what she was going to come up with next. The little Earthling was good at problem solving, better than most Saiyans, he would give her that. Although what to do with him now that she had him in the tank seemed to be close to overwhelming her. Bulma had pulled her knees up, propped her elbows against them and pressed the heels of her hands against her forehead as if that would somehow force a plan into her head. For about the fourth time, she pulled her head back slightly and thumped it against her palms. Then she dropped her hands; Vegeta hastily screwed his eyes closed again.

"Okay," she said, and for a second Vegeta thought she was on to him. But she continued, and it was clear she was talking to herself. "Let's start with injury assessment. He's breathing; check. He has a pulse-" she picked up one of his hands, then stripped off the glove, her cool fingers encircling his wrist "-check. A darned strong one." Her fingers moved to the back of his hand; he almost jerked when her thumb stroked his palm. "What a lot of calluses," she said softly. "You'd think a Prince-eh, he's a fighter, Bulma." She dropped the hand; he let it thud against the tank floor. "Fighters get a lot of calluses, you know that. Focus, girl." Her fingers covered his jaw and turned his head to the side. He thought about nipping the digit across his mouth - oh, how she'd scream - but waited. "Numerous cuts and bruises-nothing still bleeding-burn along the temple. Boy, bet that hurts." It does. Bulma turned his head the other way; a finger tapped against his cheek. "Nasty bruise there. Wonder if the cheekbone's broken?" It isn't. "What a shame," she said in that quiet voice again, and again she stroked a finger against his skin, running it along the bone's edge just under his eye. "You're not half-bad-looking when you're out cold, Veggie-kins. You don't scowl as much." She sighed, and he heard cloth rustle as she shifted. "Stop it," she said, again to herself. "This isn't going anywhere, and you know it." She touched the broken edge of his shoulder guard, muttering that she didn't know how many of these things he had but it must cost a fortune to keep him constantly supplied, then tugged at the chest armor a bit before deciding, somewhat to his disappointment, to leave it alone. It would have been entertaining to see what lengths she would have to go through to move his superior weight around when the robots couldn't help her...

"Dammit," she said finally. "Where the hell is Radditz? Not that I really want to know; he's a scary one. Okay, two choices... I get Dad in here, and hope he knows how to run this contraption-" (I am not tolerating that smelly old man near me!) "-or I call someone who's strong enough to get Vegeta to a hospital. And since Yamcha's closest-"

"I'm awake," snapped Vegeta.

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Bulma had been about to rule Yamcha out in favor of her father - she was still not talking to her ex-boyfriend, although she desperately missed their nightly chats and she could have really used someone to talk to the last couple of weeks - when Vegeta's eyes popped open and he glared at her. She gasped and jumped. Then she glared back. "You're awake, are you? How long have you been awake?"

He raised one hand and covered the lower part of his face, speaking muffled through his fingers. "What happened?"

"You tell me, Vegeta."

After a pause, he said, "That green thing used that damned attack of his to try and take my head off. I'm concussed. Which must be why I'm tolerating you."

"Piccolo? You fought Piccolo? He's in Goku's league..."

"Hardly. He's in a much higher class than that. The first good fight I've had in a long time. The only good fight I've had since I was stranded on this misbegotten planet..."

"Stranded, excuse me? You stayed here to negotiate, remember? Speaking of which - did you find out about environmental regulations?"

After a moment, he dropped his hand and muttered, crossly, "I'll check with the Minister of the Interior."

"We have a very good record of complying with environmental regulations," Bulma told him, automatically slipping into corporate-speak even as she tried not to think about what she looked like after being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. Dammit, stop it! He doesn't care what you look like! He doesn't care, Bulma... "We take our corporate responsibility to nature seriously, Vegeta. That would include making sure we didn't do anything to harm Vejiitasei's environment."

Vegeta snorted. "There's nothing you could do to hurt Vejiitasei, woman."

Hanging onto her patience by a thread, "Well, just find out and I can make sure we don't send anything to Vejiitasei it can't handle, okay?"

"Whatever." He closed his eyes, and she was struck by the unusual pallor of his face. Had he lost so much blood? She got to her feet.

"You want to tell me how to run this thing? Or I can get Dad."

"I don't need it." There was a petulant note to his voice now.

"Oh, I'm sure the fact you were near the infirmary was sheer coincidence." He opened his eyes to look at her steadily, his features carefully blanked. They were nice features, really...

And she sighed again. "Fine, bleed to death," Bulma said, rather absurdly since he didn't seem to be bleeding at all any more. "Just get a message to your purge-happy troops first that it wasn't my fault."

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He almost laughed out loud at the expression of shock on her face, and had to hide his smile lest she realize he had been conscious for some time-since he woke up to see her tugging on his foot out on the lawn, in fact. But once reassured he wasn't going to immediately die on her, President Briefs became businesslike once more.

Vegeta was beginning to loathe businesslike. He was beginning to loathe the prosaic note in her voice, the self-control she exhibited when he tried to goad her into snapping, her determination to keep everything professional between them. And he especially loathed that those hard-sounding words at the end were uttered without passion, indifferently. He wanted her angry, with her bright eyes flashing and the color flaring into her cheeks. But, although he had come close, he was not going to get that from her tonight.

When she stood up to leave, the shadows of her legs could be seen through the flimsy thing she was wearing. Vegeta watched as she stalked through the door, wondering vaguely why he should notice something like that. It wasn't as if he hadn't seen her bare-legged running around in one of those too-short dresses she wore, or bare-shouldered in one of the tubes she would pull around her chest, or-

That blow to the head must have been harder than I thought. The Prince sat up, scowling around the tank. Five minutes would remove every mark on his body, but after resting for half an hour (if being pawed by that woman could really be called "resting") he was well on to his way to being healed anyway. Getting to his feet, Vegeta rubbed at his nose, irritably questioning how Piccolo managed to make it trickle blood long after the fight was over.