Much Like Suffocating

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~****

Trunks
was used to Goten’s presence in his mind.
It had been months—nearly a year, maybe longer—since the last time he fel felt Goten settling in his mind and making himself comfortable. It was a strange little thing, where he was
melding back into Goten. It was
distracting—during this stage—especially since he was trying to transport four
adult bodies across a distance that was either going to sap him right out of
all of his energy or going to destroy his ability to control his two
halves. (And while Saiyans thought they
were pretty barbaric, they had nothing on the lethality of the spiders.)

(OH
SHIT!) Goten screamed in his mind, mentally cringed. (Sorry.
Inadvertent detour.) And
there was a touch of panic, the sense of vertigo; Goten’s mind broke open and bled into his and all the whimpering
voices of dozens of creatures blasted into his mind. He would have slapped his hands over his ears but his arms had to
stay out at his sides or he would ‘drop’ everyone. So he felt the destination change, felt Chichi’s little annoyed
shift as well—she was bearing half the burden this time, what a dear.

(Sorry,)
Goten whispered into his mind, and tried to catch his ‘mental’ breath.

When
the orange died out, they were standing in the middle of a crowd of icejin
families, with a bunch of kids tugging on their parent’s arms and pointing into
cages. Jumping up and down and
chattering away in their own language—one that Trunks had never bothered to
learn and wasn’t about to lower himself to.

“Where
the fuck are we?” Vegeta demanded.

(King
Cold’s Zoo.)

“A
zoo,” Trunks said, looked around, into the cages, and saw people. Saw real people and Saiyans, Spiders, Cats,
Juro all of them, cringing back away from the bars and the plate glass cages as
the icejin kids tossed rocks at them and banged on the glass. They were filthy. Most of them were alone, bearing bruises and wounds, some of them
in pairs and one or two with a child.
He looked at it and felt higer,ger, felt the spider in him rising. Felt the tolerance he normally had
falling.

“Why’d
you bring us here?” Krillin asked sadly.

“Fucking
Juro instincts,” Goten said, looked at the cut that ran across his
knuckles. Then pointed up, to a rise in
the city. Where a half-destroyed house
was. “That is where we need to be.”

“We
can’t just leave them here,” Krillin said.

“Chose
your fight wisely, little one,” Chichi said as she brushed past him. “How cruel is it to free them only to have
them captured?”

“We’re
here to save Bulma,” Goku said, “She’s the first priority.”

Trunks
saw the icejins turn, saw them finally noticed their little group and they
smiled in pleasant shock and humor. The
kids picked up their rocks and moved to toss them, but Goten raised two fingers
and with one mental sigh, struck the whole zoo full of icejin spectators
dead. “Oh fuck,” he said as he fell to
his knees, blood spouted out of his mouth and he grabbed his sides as the back
of his shirt blossomed out red.

“Idiot,”
Trunks remarked, grabbed him around the arm—where he wasn’t touching skin, just
shirt—and hauled him back to his feet.
Held him while the others made their way to the exit, held him while he
forced his body to heal over the wounds.
Until he was steady on his feet.
“That was stupid.”

“They
deserved it.”

“Come
on.” He moved after his brother, didn’t
have to run to catch up with them because the only one in the group that was
really moving with any speed was Goku, and Trunks had the feeling that he would
not be needed to protect that one. He
wore ore determined than even his father had ever been.

(Bardock
hates him you know. Hates his son with
every single fiber in his body. And heves ves him just that same way.)

Who
cared? The fucker was still going to
die.

~~~***

The
door was still attached—which was a shock—but the left half of the building—the
room where Vegeta was ‘freed’ was not.
Goku shoved open the doors, stepped inside and Vegeta followed him, stood
there on the threshold and saw the guards move forward, saw them converging
because Freiza had undoubtedly felt their arrival and the little half-breed’s
stunt. Trunks moved past them, slipped
between them and stood there.

Goten
stood next to Kakarot for a moment, just stood and bled, then said: “She’s in
the intake room. You know where that
is, I assume?”

“Yeah,
I know where it is,” Goku replied, then he turned and left. The guards moved to stop him, and Chichi
stood in their way—had moved too fast to be seen, and grinned at them with her
blank-eyed star the they tried to figure out where she had come from.

mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt'>Vegeta:
shiny ass?

Gk: Who
waxed my ass? *is turning in constant
circle trying to see his own shiny bottom *

Goten: I
pledge on my honor as an honorless murderer that it was not me. *shoves turtle wax at Trunks * IT was him.

Gk: SHI-NE!

Crowd:
*blink *

Strange redheaded florist with Katana (AKA Abyssinian Aka
Aya Fujimiya Aka Ran): You know. I worked really, really hard to come up with
a catch phrase! You…*sob* didn’t *sob *
have to *sob * take it from
meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!~

Vegeta: It’s
best just to ignore them right?

Chichi: This
is the wisest wisdom.

Bulma: I
like him. *glomps redhead * Can I keep him ma?

Chichi: Has
anyone else noticed that both Trunks and Goku are missing?

Vegeta:
WHAT?! GOKU! Get your SHINY ASS BACK HERE!

Webtester 01:

Lol. Don’t let Goten steal the show. This is still about Goku and Vegeta (and
everyone one else) and their question for ‘freedom.’

Jaygoose:

Wow. Giddy!
I never made anyone giddy before.
(that’s a lie.) Okay, I never
made anyone giddy with a story before.

Mechanical Butterfly:

*sigh
* Yeah, I feel pretty damn bad for
Bulma, but at the same time, I’m happy her suicide attempt didn’t work out,
because now she gets to stay in the story.
Still, to not know, and to be trapped there after you were willing to
die to es it. it. That’s got to be hell
on the mind and nerves.

It
would man inn interesting game.
Huh. *walks off to ponder this.
*

Elysium”

Oh,
please don’t explode. It’s messy. ;)

Macha:

Goten
does get himself into some interesting scraps.
Yes, Chichi is after Trunks’ very cool, powerful little self. (Not ever going to be my favorite couple
either. Just saying it makes me sort of
cringe.)

Hudine:

Welcome.

Unfortunately
you’re going to have to wait to see Bardock die. It doesn’t happen yet.
But lots of stuff happens along the way! *grin like an idiot *p>