Dragonball Extreme

King Vegeta watched Bardock carefully. The lower-class saiya-jin had been sitting in the same place for some time just staring straight ahead. He wondered briefly if Bardock was in the middle of another vision, but he quickly realized that Bardock\'s eyes didn\'t seem glazed, and his demeanor wasn\'t as stiff. It was more like he was sleeping with his eyes open. \"Bardock,\" he said out loud.
Bardock blinked and looked at his king. \"Yes, Your Highness?\" he asked. \"What do you need?\"

\"I was concerned about you,\" King Vegeta replied. \"You didn\'t look well.\"

Bardock smiled wryly. \"I\'m dead, Your Highness. I\'m not supposed to look well.\"

King Vegeta smiled at Bardock\'s quick comeback. \"You know what I mean. I\'ve always been able to tell when you\'re not in top shape; now what\'s wrong?\"

Bardock stared at the floor between his feet. \"I\'ve lost track of time,\" he said. \"I don\'t even know how fast time passes here; I can\'t even tell how long we\'ve been in this cage.\"

King Vegeta put his hand on top of Bardock\'s hand. \"I know,\" he said. \"We\'ll just have to deal with it though; time isn\'t what concerns me, it\'s the fact that we\'re going to have to face Enma Daiou again. We managed to stay together last time because we were both sent to Hell. I\'m not so certain this time, since I don\'t know what his plans for us are.\"

\"I won\'t let anything separate us,\" Bardock vowed, \"not even Enma Daiou! I don\'t care who he thinks he is, we\'re saiya-jin, we can overcome him!\"

King Vegeta grinned. \"That\'s more like the Bardock I know,\" he said. \"Always thinking you\'re invincible, even though you\'re rated third-class. The saiya-jin pride really does run strong in you\'re blood.\"

Their conversation was suddenly interrupted. An ogre stepped up to their cage and unlocked the doors. \"Don\'t try anything funny,\" he said. \"Emperor Enma wants to see you two now, and if you\'re smart you\'ll keep quiet and show respect; maybe he\'ll go easy on you.\" He opened the door of the cage and roughly pushed Bardock and Vegeta out. The ogre snickered as he jabbed the two saiya-jin in the back and pushed them ahead of him.

*

Bulma hung up the phone and turned to Vegeta.WellWell, I just got done talking to ChiChi; she and Gokou are on their way over here. I told her not to let him rush over since Gohan needs to rest anyway.\"

\"Good,\" Vegeta said shortly. \"Now let\'s get that woman of his over here; like it or not, he\'s going to have to make a decision about her.\"

Bulma sighed. \"I\'ll let her know what happened, Vegeta, but I really don\'t think you should try to force either her or Gohan to make a move either way; it\'s only going to hurt their relationship if you do. Let\'s let them work things out for themselves.\"

Vegeta snorted. \"Have it your way,\" he said. \"By morning I\'m sure Gohan will change his mind regardless.\" He turned and walked away from her.

Bulma stared after him. She wondered what he meant by that last comment; was he just being snide or was there something really wrong with Gohan? Just as she picked up the phone again, the doorbell rang.

\"It has to be Gokou and ChiChi,\" she thought. \"No one else can get through the security system.\"

Sure enough, as she got downstairs and opened the door, she was greeted by Gokou and ChiChi. Gokou was hovering just above the door mat and clutching ChiChi in his arms.

\"I couldn\'t get him to go any slower,\" ChiChi apologized. \"I reminded him just in time about the security system too; he almost set off your whole compound by barging in here.\"

Bulma smiled. \"That\'s okay,\" she said. She opened the door wider and gestured for them to come inside. \"Come in; I\'ll see if Gohan is up to having visitors yet.\"

Vegeta walked into the room. \"Don\'t bother,\" he said. \"He\'s not here anymore.\"

ChiChi looked alarmed. \"What do you mean?\" she asked. \"Where did he go?\"

\"I don\'t know,\" Vegeta admitted. \"I thought I sensed a change in his ki a minute ago; when I checked his room, I found out that he\'d left - and fast. He was already out of sight when I stepped outside to look for him.\"

\"Take me up to his room,\" Gokou said suddenly. \"I\'ll follow his trail and find him.\"

\"Hold on a sec, Gokou,\" Bulma said. \"I was just about to call Videl and let her know what\'s happening; right now, she probably thinks he\'s still at the college teaching.\"

Gokou looked a bit impatient, but he conceded. \"All right, I\'ll wait.\"

Bulma led all of them into the living room. \"Why don\'t you two sit for a few minutes while I call Videl,\" she said. \"If we all go looking for him together, we stand a better chance of finding him and convincing him to come back.\" She walked over to a table and picked up a cordless phone.

As she was talking to Videl on the phone, Trunks walked into the room, sleepily rubbing his eye. Pan was just behind him, and looked carefully around the room. \"What\'s going on?\" she asked. \"We can sense that something\'s wrong.\"

ChiChi looked a little shocked, but then quickly covered up her surprise. She mentally reminded herself that Pan and Trunks were together now; Goten was probably also here with Bra, she reasoned. \"Gohan had some problems at work tonight,\" ChiChi said. \"I\'m sure Bulma was going to wake you soon and tell you; she\'s on the phone with your mother right now.\"

Bulma hung up the phone. \"Videl\'s on her way over,\" she said. \"I\'m glad you\'re awake, Pan,\" she said. \"I should probably wake Goten too; he\'s going to want to help look for Gohan.\"

\"What do you mean look for him?\" Pan asked.

\"We had brought him here because he collapsed at work tonight,\" Bulma said. \"I think he may have gotten scared, though, because he suddenly left.\"

\"What does he have to be scared of?\" Pan wondered. \"He should feel safe here; Goten and I do.\"

Bulma looked a bit uncomfortable. Vegeta saw her discomfort and stepped in before she had a chance to confuse Pan further. \"I told him he had to either convince that mother of yours to sleep with him or to find a new mate to take care of his needs. Obviously he was afraid of what was going to happen when she showed up and took off to avoid it.\"

Vegeta, Gokou, ChiChi, Pan and Trunks sat in tense silence and waited for Videl while Bulma went to wake Goten and Bra. After a few moments, Bulma reappeared, with Goten and Bra behind her. The two half-saiya-jin were quickly pulling on clothes while they tried to rub the sleep from their eyes.

\"As soon as Videl gets here we can take off,\" Bulma said. \"It shouldn\'t be hard to catch up with Gohan, especially with the condition he was in.\"

*

Lady Macbeth led Gohan down a dark hall. He stumbled a little with sleepiness and she stopped; she extended her arm and let him steady himself.

Gohan smiled weakly. \"Thanks,\" he said gratefully. \"I\'m not sure what\'s wrong with me; I should be more alert than this.\"

Lady Macbeth smiled. \"There was a lot of sleepy grass in that tea you drank,\" she said. \"And considering the condition you were in when I found you, it should be taking a stronger effect than it would normally.\" She stopped and opened a heavy wooden door and led Gohan into a spacious, neat bedroom. \"This is one of the spare rooms I have open right now,\" she said. \"You can stay in here for tonight; we can talk more in the morning, you should be feeling better by then.\"

Gohan thanked her and moved sluggishly toward the bed. He slumped down and kicked off his shoes, then flopped over onto the bed. He didn\'t bother cover himself up, he just fell asleep where he was. Lady Macbeth approached the bed and tucked the blankets in around him. She smiled a little at the sleeping saiya-jin and left.

As she closed the door to Gohan\'s room behind her, Pigero approached out of the darkness. \"He\'s in worse condition than he\'s letting on, isn\'t he?\" he asked.

\"Yes, he is,\" Lady Macbeth replied. \"I was able to gather most of his problems from his thoughts, but some he\'s even clouding from himself right now. It\'s not hard to figure out what\'s wrong and what he needs though; make sure none of the girls tend to him in the morning - have yourself or one of the young men deliver his breakfasd cld clothes.\"

\"Yes, my Lady,\" Pigero responded.

\"What\'s the status on those danger watches I added last night?\" Lady Macbeth asked.

\"One\'s still a yellow light, one\'s gone red in the last half-hour,\" Pigero replied.

Lady Macbeth scowled. \"Let me see the reports; I may have to take care of both of them in the early hours of the morning.\" She followed Pigero down the hall to another expansive room. This one was filled with an array of computer equipment showing various views of her home as well as screens of charts and reports. She tapped a few keys one of the keyboards and frowned as she watched the changes in the chart before her. \"I\'m leaving now,\" she said. \"I have a feeling this yellow light will be red within a few hours as well. I need to attend to both of them immediately.\"

\"Do you expect trouble?\" Pigero asked worriedly.

\"Normally I would say no, but I sense outside interference in this one. Be on standby when I arrive just in case.\"

\"The shop will be closed in the morning, then?\" Pigero queried.

\"Yes, at least for a while.\" Lady Macbeth stopped and thought. \"Gohan was sure he\'d be followed, I gathered at least a half dozen names in his primary focus. They all seem to be related to him and are non threatening. If someone shows up here looking for him, delay them until I get back. Considering Gohan\'s natural abilities, it probably would be wise to have the force field up as well.\"

\"You think they\'ll be as strong as he is then?\" Pigero said. He looked amazed that such a thing was possible.

\"Yes, or even moreso,\" Lady Macbeth replied. \"Two of the names were his parents, and I\'m familiar with both of them. Son Gokou is the winner of the World\'s Greatest Martial Arts Tournament years ago against Piccolo, and his mother is the daughter of Gyu-mao of Fry-Pan Mountain, known as being the strongest woman in the world. Just be on your toes.\" As she spoke, she was quickly changing out of her long dress into a pair of short, flexible shorts and a tight cropped top, both of a deep leather brown color. She kicked her shoes aside and went to the front door. \"Watch for me just after daybreak,\" she said.

*

Gokou flew at the head of the group, with Vegeta just behind him and Goten and Trunks trailing, carrying their mothers. Bra, Pan and Videl were hot on their heels. Gokou was focused on Gohan\'s ki trail, and followed it every inch of the way, though he was a bit confused by the erratic flying pattern it took. He glanced back at Vegeta. \"This isn\'t even a straight line,\" he said.

\"Gohan probably wasn\'t concentrating very hard,\" Vegeta replied. \"That would be why the trail wobbles so bad; he was probably just flying randomly in a general direction away from Capsule Corp.\"

After a couple hours, Gokou noticed that Gohan\'s ki signature dropped toward the ground. \"It looks like he landed down there,\" he called to the others. He dived toward a pebbly road and a roadside bench where Gohan\'s ki stopped.

The group looked around. \"He was definitely here,\" Goten said. \"I can feel his ki right on this bench.\"

\"Yeah, but he\'s not here now, and his ki trail broke off too,\" Vegeta said sourly. \"Who knows where he wandered in the middle of nowhere like this.\"

\"Why did his ki trail break off?\" Videl asked. \"What happened to him?\"

\"I don\'t know,\" Vegeta replied shortly.

Everyone was silent for a moment as they stared around them. Suddenly, Gokou felt another presence watching them. He squinted into the darkness and saw a ragged, unshaven man peering at the group from across the road.

\"Hey there!\" Gokou called.

The man looked startled. He hesitantly took a step forward. \"Y\' callin\' t\' me?\" he asked.

\"Yes,\" Gokou replied. \"Are you around this area a lot?\"

\"Yeah,\" the guy replied. \"I live \'ere. No othern place t\' go, an\' this\'s a\' good a\' any.\"

\"What are you getting at, Gokou?\" Bra asked.

\"If the guy lives around here, hght ght have seen where Gohan went,\" Gokou said. He turned back to the man. \"We\'re looking for someone,\" Gokou said. \"Did you see anyone at this bench in the last few hours?\"

\"Young fella wi\' dark hair?\" the scraggly man asked.

\"Yes, that\'s him,\" ChiChi jumped in. \"Do you know where he went?\"

The man muttered to himself a bit and scratched his chin with indecision. \"He resembl\'d y\' a bit,\" he told Gokou. \"I\' he a relation o\' yourn?\"

\"He\'s my son,\" Gokou replied. \"Please, if you\'ve seen him tell us where he went. We really want to find him.\"

The man shook his head sadly. \"Sad, sad,\" he said. \"I\'s a real shame, y\' won\' be able t\' ge\' \'im back,\" he added. \"Th\' witch got \'im, and ain\' nobody e\'er go\' their chillen back from \'er.\"

\"What do you mean?\" Gokou demanded. \"Who is this witch? Where did she take Gohan?\"

\"Sh\' lives o\'er there,\" the man said, pointing down the road. \"Can\'t says I know \'ow far, though; I ne\'er go there m\'self.\"

Gokou braced himself to leap into the air, but the ragged man stopped him. \"I saw all o\' ya fly in,\" he said. \"Y\' can\' ge\' there tha\' way; a person can only ge\' there by walkin\'.\"

\"Are you sure?\" ChiChi asked. She frowned skeptically.

\"I\' sure, ma\'am,\" the man said. \"Th\' witch protects \'er house tha\' way; only by walkin\' can y\' ge\' there.\"

\"Then we\'ll walk,\" Vegeta snapped. He turned and quickly strode off in the direction the man pointed. Gokou bid the man farewell and thanks and quickly followed Vegeta, followed by the others.

The pebbled road lead into a small rural village. Everything seemed quiet; all the houses were dark, and there wasn\'t the slightest sound anywhere. As they continued past the rugged buildings, the group could see the glow from a larger town peering up over a dense bank of trees. The road led straight into the forest.

\"I don\'t see anything that looks like a house that belongs to a witch,\" Videl commented. \"It looks like just a bunch of farmers live here.\"

\"We\'ll keep walking,\" Gokou said suddenly. He surprised everyone with his sharpness. \"I have a feeling we\'ll know it when we see it.\"

*

Bardock and Vegeta stood before Emperor Enma. Vegeta was calm and resolute; Bardock was nervous, but hid his feelings behind an angry facade as he moved to shield his king. Enma looked disinterestedly down on the two saiya-jin before returning to reading the papers before him.

Bardock couldn\'t take the suspense any longer. \"Well, are you going to tell us why we\'re here or not?\" he demanded. His rude outburst caused a collective gasp to go up in the room around him.

Enma eyed Bardock over the top of a file folder. \"I\'m just the intermediary here,\" he said. \"The one who called you should be here soon. Take a seat.\"

\"Take a sea Bar Bardock exclaimed. \"Like hell! After what we were put through to get here?\"

King Vegeta rested a hand on Bardock\'s shoulder. \"Calm down,\" he said. \"Let things happen as they will.\"

Bardock sighed with frustration but refused to be seated. He walked a tight pattern near his king while the two of them waited for something to happen. They watched the endless stream of souls file by, and listened to Enma Daiou\'s droning in the background. \"Hell...hell...heaven...hell...hell...hell...\"

\"Well, at least we know we weren\'t the only ones he was hard on,\" King Vegeta muttered.

A few moments later a woman of indeterminate age walked into the room. She was shrouded in a light, feathery cloak and her eye and hair color was as difficult to determine as her age. All action in the room suddenly ceased.

\"Well it\'s about time, Shukumei!\" Enma Daiou exclaimed. His booming voice broke the silence of the room and echoed from the rafters. \"Will you please get these two pests out of here? I\'ve better things to do than baby-sit a couple of pain-in-the-ass saiya-jin.\"

Shukumei looked unperturbed. \"You have their files ready?\" she calmly asked.

Grumbling the whole while, Enma Daiou dug through his desk and withdrew two dusty file folders. He handed them to the woman. \"They\'re your annoyance now; and if you need any moavoravors, let me know ahead of time.\"

Shukumei frowned as she dusted off the folders. \"These folders were never opened, Enma. If you did your job properly, I wouldn\'t have the problems that I\'m having.\"

Emperor Enma snorted. \"There were too many of the little pests all at once; I knew their reputations, they were categorized correctly.\"

The woman didn\'t bother to respond. She simply turned on her heel and walked over to Bardock and King Vegeta. She reached out to take King Vegeta\'s hand and Bardock became alarmed. He quickly stepped between the woman and his king.

Shukumei smiled. She gently rested her hand on Bardock\'s arm. \"It\'s all right, Bardock,\" she said. Her voice was melodic and soothing. \"I have no intention of separating you two. Please come with me; I\'ll have you staying in more comfortable surroundings for the time being.\"

The two saiya-jin followed the woman through a side corridor and down a winding hall. The ambience around them grew lighter and more obscure until they were surrounded by nothing but cloud-like matter. They suddenly stepped out of the cloud bank and into a peaceful countryside. They noted light green fields that disappeared into color banded cliffs on the horizon, a sapphire blue sky above and the off and on sounds of wildlife around them.

\"Where is this place?\" Bardock asked. He glanced about nervously; things seemed too calm from what they\'d just been through.

\"This is my domain, neither heaven nor hell. Much like the Earth is, actually, I prefer it that way. I\'d like you two to stay in one of my guest houses until this whole mess is straightened out.\" The woman smiled at the two, and for a moment Bardock thought she looked almost saiya-jin; in an instant it was gone.

King Vegeta was eyeing up the house in front of them. \"Do you mind if we walk around a bit?\" he asked. \"No offense, but this house seems a bit small for the two of us.\"

\"Feel free,\" Shukumei said. \"Think of this as your home away from home. All tleasleasures of life are here; it would be a waste to sit inside the house the whole time.\" She started to turn away. \"I have some work to take care of; I\'ll be back soon to check on you and see that everything\'s ok.\" She walked away and faded into the horizon.

\"Don\'t you think this is the least bit odd?\" Bardock asked. He glanced around, hoping that the woman was out of earshot. \"We spend who-knows-how-many years in Hell and suddenly we\'re treated like honored guests and given all kinds of freedoms and gifts?\"

King Vegeta had a thoughtful look on his face. \"It is a bit odd,\" he admitted. \"But I don\'t sense any malice from that woman. For a moment I thought she was treating us nicely because she was saiya-jin like us; now I\'m not so sure. I wish we knew more about her.\"

Bardock jumped a little in surprise. \"I thought she was saiya-jin too for a minute!\" he exclaimed. \"She\'s not a half-breed is she?\"

King Vegeta stroked his beard with a bemused look on his face. \"No, I don\'t believe so. I believe that whatever magick she possesses that lets her stand face to face with Enma Daiou lets her disguise her race and age. I couldn\'t even tell how old she is for certain; for all we know she could still be a child and not know how to treat people harshly.\"

\"So what do we do now?\" Bardock asked.

King Vegeta flopped down on the grass and stretched out. \"We kick back and wait. I won\'t mind at all having some time to relax.\"

*

Gokou was getting frustrated. There still was a s a sign of Gohan and they couldn\'t pick up his ki trail either. He wondered briefly if the homeless man had known what he was talking about, but he was determined to keep going until he found Gohan.

Vegeta suddenly stopped and knelt down. Gokou was immediately beside him. \"What is it?\" he asked.

\"Footprints,\" Vegeta said. \"Two people walked out of the mud we just passed onto this path; unfortunately the trail doesn\'t go far; the mud wore off almost right away.\"

What Vegeta had said was true; the muddy footprints gradually got lighter and disappeared a few feet further along the rocky path. Gokou put his hands on the bigger of the two prints; he could sense a very weak residual ki in them. He then put his hands on the smaller of the prints and was surprised to feel nothing but mud.

\"The bigger footprints are Gohan\'s,\" Gokou said grimly. \"I can just barely make out his ki in them. The tiny prints are different though; it\'s as if no one was ever there; there\'s no ki signature left in them.\"

\"Someone shielding their ki,\" Vegeta said suddenly. \"And probably Gohan\'s as well; that\'s why we can\'t follow his trail any longer.\"

Gokou nodded silently. He looked ahead of them and followed the faint trail with his eyes. \"Gohan\tridtride isn\'t as long as it should be, and he was stumbling. He better be all right when we find him.\" He took off quickly on foot, and the others followed him, rapidly covering miles of winding forest path.

The sun was just cresting over the horizon as the group broke out of the woods and found themselves in a small, shaded clearing. The woods broke up and ended further ahead; they could hear the sounds of a large city waking up ahead of them. Right in the clearing, however, they were surprised to find a tall, wooden fence before them. Behind the fence they could see peaks of a roof set against the wood line.

\"Is this it?\" Videl asked. \"I expected some kind of a creepy cave, like in the storybooks.\"

\"Baka!\" Vegeta spat. \"Obviously the woman has power, like us, but that pathetic human\'s obviously never seen anything of the sort. That\'s why he thinks of her as a witch.\"

Videl looked a little disappointed. \"You mean she could be just anybody? How would we know then?\"

\"She\'s not just anybody if she knows how to shield her ki,\" Gokou said. \"I say we go inside. I\'m willing to bet that Gohan\'s in that building behind this fence.\" He walked forward and put his hand to the gate. It didn\'t give under his push. \"It\'s locked,\" he said.

\"Then we unlock it,\" Vegeta said. He powered up a small ki blast and fired it at the gate. To his shock, it ricocheted off the gate back toward him. He dodged it just in time.

\"What the hell?\" he yelled. He approached the gate and slammed his hand against it. The wooden planks did not budge. \"There\'s some kind of force field around it,\" he growled. \"Normal wood doesn\old old up like that.\"

Bulma was studying in the fence and gate. \"Well, if there\'s a force field up, then there must be somebody home. Why don\'t we knock?\"

Vegeta stared incredulously at Bulma as she walked up to the gate. \"Well, why not?\" she demanded. \"People don\'t get into Capsule Corp by trying to blast their way in.\" She found an ornamental iron knocker on the gate and took it in her hand. \"We don\'t have anything to lose.\" She raised the knocker and knocked several times on the gate with it.

\"Yes?\" a male voice responded.

Everyone in the group jumped. \"We\'re looking for a friend of ours,\" Bulma said aloud. \"His name is Son Gohan, and we believe he came here last night. Is he here?\"

\"He is,\" the man replied. \"However, the lady of the house is not home. I cannot let you in until she returns.\"

\"We\'ll see about that,\" Vegeta grumbled. He started to power up another blast.

\"Vegeta, wait,\" Gokou said. \"It didn\'t work before, and it\'s certainly not going to work now that they know we want in; we need to try something else.\"

Vegeta started to snap back a reply but was cut off by the sound of galloping hooves approaching them. The group squinted into the sunrise and saw a horse and rider heading full bore toward the gate. As they got closer, the saiyans saw that it was a small woman carrying a small child in her arms. The horse she was riding was painfully thin, and it\'s spindly legs looked as though they shouldn\'t be able to carry the weight. Behind the horse and rider they saw several police cars in pursuit.

As she neared the gate, the woman called \"Pigero, open the doors!\"

The gate and fence never changed, yet the woman on the horse never slowed.

\"She\'ll never stop in time!\" Pan cried.

The woman\'s demeanor never changed. She raced past the group on the horse and ran right through the gate.

Bra rubbed her eyes. \"Did she just...?\"

\"Run through the gate?\" Trunks finished. \"Yes, she did. The question is how; I didn\'t sense an increase in her power, and the gate isn\'t damaged.\"

The police cars that had been chasing the woman braked hard and slid to a stop in front of the group. One of the police men stepped out of his car and angrily threw his hat to the ground.

\"Kuso!\" he spat. \"How did she escape again? There\'s no way she could have out run us on that animal.\"

\"Obviously you underestimated her,\" Vegeta said smugly.

The police man stared at the group. \"Who are all of you?\" he demanded. \"Do you have something to do with that woman?\"

Gokou stepped forward and cut Vegeta off before he could start any trouble. \"She has my son,\" he said. \"We came to get him back.\"

\"Yeah, well, get in line,\" the police man said. \"She\'s got at least a dozen people\'s kids; fa rea report at the office and we\'ll keep working on it.\"

\"File a report!\" ChiChi yelled. \"How is that going to get Gohan out of there?\"

The police man backed up a step; he was surprised and a little shocked by ChiChi\'s angry outburst. \"Well, we can\'t get into her perimeter,\" he said. He pointed at the fence surrounding Lady Macbeth\'s home. \"Our best forces have tried and can\'t get in; we just have to wait until we get word that she\'s out and moving again and try to catch her while she\'s at it.\"

Vegeta just sneered at the man. \"And you really think you stand a chance? If you can\'t get to her while she\'s off guard, you\'re certainly not going to catch her when she sees you coming!\"

A younger police man interrupted the conversation; he leaned out of his car and called to the officer outside his car. \"Sir! We were just called back to the station; the captain wants a full report on our progress today.\"

The police man walked away from the group grumbling to himself. He opened the door of his car and turned back to the group. \"Go home, folks,\" he said. \"Let us take care of this.\" He got in the car and drove away, followed by the other cars.

\"Pathetic,\" Vegeta spat.

The nine of them stared tensely at the fence for a moment. A sudden movement in the woods behind them made them all jump to alert.

Piccolo walked out of the woods, carrying a shivering and pathetic looking Tales by the baf hif his neck.

\"This thing said you wouldn\'t mind his presence, yet he was hiding in the woods,\" Piccolo said disgustedly. He threw Tales to the ground.

Vegeta\'s eyes narrowed at the lower-class saiya-jin. \"What are you doing here?\" he demanded. He then turned his attention to Piccolo. \"And I might ask you the same thing.\"

Tales shakily stood up. \"The building was empty when I woke up, and I followed your trail. I didn\'t have anything else to do.\"

Piccolo snorted in disgust and turned his attention away from Tales. \"I came looking for Gohan; I saw him take off last night, and I noticed when his ki signature disappeared.\"

\"Well this is as far as we got, and for now anyway, it seems to be as far as we\'re going,\" Bulma said. \"I hope you\'re prepared to wait.\"

*

Inside, Lady Macbeth was walking along the grounds, still carrying the child and leading the horse around the building. They circled around to the back where an expansive yard spread out before them. Along the side of the yard was a small out building; Lady Macbeth lead the horse inside. She looked around and found a trough full of water and another full of grain. \"Good,\" she said out loud. \"Pigero remembered what I asked for.\" She settled the animal inside the building and walked back up to the house with the child.

Pigero met her at the door. \"Welcome home, my Lady. Everyone\'s still asleep, including Gohan,\" he said.

\"Good,\" Lady Macbeth replied. \"I want to get this little guy in bed too; he\'s had a long night.\" She set the little boy down on a chair. Pigero handed her a long, white gown and she put it on over her other clothes.

\"I saw the police following you on the monitor,\" Pigero said. \"Was there more trouble than you expected?\"

\"If I didn\'t know better, I\'d say it almost smells of a set-up,\" she replied. \"The police were there waiting when I got there. I overheard one of their radio conversations; someone had called in an anonymous tip of trouble last nightfterfter all the months that the abuse lasted in that household without anyone saying anything, it seems suspicious to me.\"

\"And I suppose this is going to be another mark on your official record?\" Pigero queried.

\"Unfortunately, yes, and it\'s going to be a more severe one. The child\'s parents are dead, thanks to his no-good father. Since the police chased me from the scene, though, they probably won\'t even pursue that avenue; it\'ll be automatically pinned on me.\"

The little boy on the chair had been quiet for most of the conversation, but at the mention of the tumultuous night, he started to whimper. He rubbed his eye with his fist and tried to curl up on the chair.

Lady Macbeth knelt beside him and took him in her arms. \"Shh,\" she whispered. \"It\'s ok now, you\'re safe. Remember, I brought you home with me to be safe.\"

The child looked up at Lady Macbeth, unsure whether he should trust her or not.

Pigero knelt down beside the two. \"Hey, buddy,\" he said. He gave the child a bright smile. \"I know what you need; you need a special treat and a nice warm bed. How does chocolate ice cream sound?\"

The child looked warily at Pigero. His lower lip trembled, but he didn\'t cry.

Lady Macbeth stood the boy on the floor. \"Why don\'t you go with Pigero for a little while?\" she asked. \"I have other little ones just like you here that I need to see too; I\'ll be back to tuck you into bed when you\'re ready to sleep.\"

The boy started to cry again, but Pigero quickly walked him in another direction, striking up conversation as they went. \"Do you like your ice cream plain, or do you like chocolate sauce on it?\" he asked. \"I usually put chocolate sauce on half of mine and leave the other half plain.\"

Lady Macbeth smiled as Pigero and the boy disappeared down the hall. He\'d be all right for now, and she had her rounds to tend to.

As she walked through the halls, she was pleased to hear silence and to see that everyone seemed to be sleeping peacefully. She approached Gohan\'s room last and peeked inside.

Gohan was just starting to stir, and it was readily apparent that he wasn\'t comfortable at all. He struggled to sit up and pushed the blankets away from him. Lady Macbeth opened the door further and went in.

\"You\'re still in pain,\" she said immediately. She pulled the blankets back over his legs and pushed him back into a reclining position. \"Rest until I return with something to dull the pain.\"

\"I can\'t,\" Gohan said. He struggled to sit up again. \"I\'m going to be missed; Ie toe to get going.\"

\"Your friends and parents are already here,\" Lady Macbeth said. \"I passed them when I came in this morning. You just try to relax; I\'ll get you something to drink and lhem hem in.\" Gohan was about to protest again, but the woman surprised him by disappearing before his eyes.

He leaned back again and tried to clear his mind; it wasn\'t doing any good. He hated how sensitive he was; it was causing him pain just to be in the presence of a woman; he could detect the kis of several others besides Lady Macbeth within the building. His frustration mounted, and he slammed his fists against his legs and screamed to relieve his agony.

*
Gokou was pacing outside the fence when he heard the scream in his mind. He froze in place for a second, then turned to Vegeta in a rush. \"Did you hear that?\" he demanded. \"That was Gohan! He\'s in pain!\"

\"Yes, I heard it,\" Ve rep replied. \"And he is in pain, but it\'s not from anything that woman is doing to him. It\'s about what I expected he\'d be like this morning.\"

Goten was looking a little shaken. He and the other half-saiya-jin had apparently heard it as well, and Gokou suspected that Pan did too, by the stricken look on her face.

\"Whether that woman you keep referring to is involved or not, we have to get in there!\" Piccolo shouted angrily. He jumped up as if to take to the air but was immediately thrown back to the ground.

\"What happened?\" Videl asked.

\"I don\'t know,\" Piccolo grumbled. \"I can\'t fly.\"

\"Let me try,\" Gokou said. He powered up to super-saiya-jin and jumped up like a rocket; he barely got a look over the fence before he too fell back to the ground.

\"Idiots,\" Vegeta said. \"That\'s why we walked all this way, remember? That old man said we wouldn\'t be able to fly.\"

\"Oh yeah,\" Gokou rubbed his head. He powered down to normal and looked up at the gate. \"We\'re going to have to think of something though.\"

Suddenly the group saw a woman\'s head and torso appear through the gate. They stared in shock as she carefully surveyed the group then stepped the rest of the way out. \"My name is Macbeth,\" she said. \"Come with me; Gohan is inside.\"

\"About time,\" Pan grumbled.

Lady Macbeth smiled. \"I understand your frustration,\" she said. \"Your father probably won\'t want visitors right away, but I let him know that you were here. Now, follow me quickly; I won\'t keep the gate open long.\" She turned and walked quickly back through the gate.

Everyone stared for a moment, then Pan suddenly ran forward. \"If she can get through, then I can too!\" she said. \"I need to see my dad!\" Before anyone had a chance to stop her, she too disappeared through the gate.

Gokou turned to the others and shrugged. \"I guess we can get in now.\" They followed Pan through the gate.