Chapter Two: The First Pickings

"Doctors worldwide are hard at work trying to identify this strange new virus as quickly as possible and discover the source of its rapid spread, though representatives say it could be months before any headway is made. Meanwhile, no edicts have as of yet been issued for quarantine. In other news, West City police are still investigating the recent robbery of world renowned Capsule Corporation. They bel-"

Click.

Chichi sighed sadly and stepped away from the television. "Seems bad times are all over."

Turning into the kitchen, she spotted her younger son putting his plate into the sink. "Honey?" she called out gently, the little child turned and looked up at her. "Honey, did Gohan leave already?"

Goten thought for a moment, then nodded meekly. "He said he wanted to go early for…somethin'. I can't remember."

"The memorial service…" she recalled. He nodded again.

"That's what it was." Turning back to the sink, he ran a bit of water over his dirty plate and left it to soak. "Mommy?" She was beside him, and he looked up and asked in a very small voice. "Can I go outside?"

She nodded, and when the boy was out of sight, she began her assault on the dishes. Literally. Whatever anger and pent-up frustration had built up inside of her now burst out as she attacked the pile of dirty plates and glasses before her.

"My boy…" she choked out in a whisper as her eyes clouded and her vision blurred, glazed over with a thin coating of unshed tears. "My poor little boy…"

Gohan hadn't said more than a few words since the death, not that she'd really prodded him. Mother's intuition told her it was best to let him grieve alone right now, and whatever gory details the news left out, her instincts filled her in on; she had but to look at her son's eyes to know he was hurting.

All this time…all this time without so much as a casual friend anywhere near his own age…then the girl Chichi had known was "the one"…It just wasn't fair! Not to Gohan, not to Videl, not to the life they might have had together. The tears came more freely now, leaving twisting salty trails own her cheeks. "Gohan…"

*****

Gohan stood, alone, on the empty plain, staring at the small screen from dark, expressionless eyes. The service was, of course, being covered by all the major networks, but the reception on the small portable television left something to be desired.

A tall, older man with curly black hair and dressed in a suit of the same color stepped up to the microphone. This was not the savior of the world, not the hero to all who lived; no, right now, this was a stooped, saddened, aged father, mourning the loss of his only child, trying to cope with the fact that he was burying his own daughter. He turned off the machine and threw it away. Hercule could say nothing in praise of Videl that Gohan didn't already know. Instead, he turned his attentions now on the vehicle before him.

It was small, round, had one door, was fitted with life-support systems, on all accounts not much changed since Vegeta had crashed in it onto Earth those many years before. He deftly pressed a series of buttons on an outside panel, and a door which took up half of the pod hissed open.

As Gohan stepped inside, he braced himself against the hatch and took one last look at the field around him. The blades of green grass, bending and swaying in the gentle breeze; the clear water, the blue never-ending sky-it was all so young and alive..

'Wonderful,' thought the demi-Saiyan.

He released himself of his earthly bonds and attachments, and resigned his body to the confines of the Saiyan pod, stiffening as the hatch closed upon him, and settled into the padded seat.

As he lay there, his path before him, he felt a slight tinge of pity gnawing at the back of his mind. He brushed it off quickly; revenge was a sad business, and acceptable losses must be allowed for.

He entered the codes that would lift the craft into a slow orbit and gazed benignly out of the single, small window, his blank face masking his intentions.

The launch began and the earth slowly faded below him, a mass of blue and white floating on a sea of constant darkness. Now Gohan, too, found himself lost in that sea, adrift, just as this Kai-forsaken planet.

"Goodbye..."

*****

"It…it's gone! He-he didn't-oh no…" King Kai could do nothing but gaze blankly ahead, every thought intently focused on the Earth. It wasn't possible, just not possible! But he had seen the whole thing. "He destroyed…the entire planet…"

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block the image, all the while lamenting to a long gone soul, "Oh, Goku…your son…your son…how did it come to this?"

-END CHAPTER TWO-