Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ With A Jagged Edge ❯ Trapped ( Chapter 2 )

Uncertain why she was even bothering, after all why should she do him any favors by showing up, Tayven was up and about at 4:30 the next morning. Shivering from the cold, she stood outside Capsule Corp near the oak tree she'd abused the night before, waiting. Her breath came out in white clouds due to the chill in the air and she hopped from one foot to the other, trying to stay warm. Being thin, she got cold too fast and had a hard time keeping her body heat in. Her teeth had begun to chatter when he appeared, stretching and walking from the house.

"I see you've decided to be smart for once." He said to her. She shrugged, trying hard to keep her temper in check. Besides, it was too damn cold this morning to get upset over nothing. With much effort she let his remark slide. Time enough later to make him pay for it, She thought as he approached her. "First thing you're going to learn is to show some respect."

She glared and folded her arms across her chest, doing a perfect imitation of him. Without warning, he cuffed her across the ear and she cried out, in pain, holding her now-bleeding ear. "Ow! Dammit! What did you do that for, asshole!"

"I did that because I didn't like that look you just gave me," Vegeta said, seriously, "If you don't want more of the same, You have a perfectly good ear you know, I'd start showing some respect."

For a moment Tayven considered continuing to glare, but after a heartbeat she unfolded her arms and a look of expectation bordering on trepidation crossed her petite features. Knowing that he had her attention now, Vegeta said; "Now, the next thing you are going to learn is how to tap into your ki and..."

"Wait, wait...my what?" She asked, confused, he growled at the interruption and she began to realize that he wasn't a very patient teacher. Well, she wasn't a very patient student so she supposed they were equal where that was concerned.

"Don't interrupt!" He barked and began again as if she'd never spoken; " ...learn how to focus it. It will add power to your physical attacks and... "

"You never told me what...what...ki is..." She said, backing a few steps away as he glared at her for interrupting him yet again. "Sorry..." She said softly.

"Basically, it's your enegry, Tayven, your essence...or spirit." He tried to explain, gesturing with his hands as he did so, "Those who know how, can tap into thier ki and manipulate it to into taking forms of enegery-based projectiles and other things."

"What other things?" She asked, clearly interested, she seemed to recall reading something about this in Bulma's story, but had forgotten in the events of the previous night. Some of it came rushing back to her as Vegeta talked, but not all of it.

"You can use your ki to fly," He said, floating himself a few feet in the air as if to demonstate, "Like so. Understand?"

"Sorta..." She said, shaking her head. Her words said she understood, but her scent, as he sniffed the air around her, told him different. Confusion and uncertainy leaked from her in waves. He lowered himself to the ground, reached out and took her hand. She flinched and tried to pull away, automatically reverting back to her natural state when anyone tried to touch her, which was to move away from that person.

He read the distrust in her body langage as well as in her scent and smirked; "I'm not going to hurt you, Tayven, I merely wish to show you something. Relax." She tried, but she kept having this image of him cuffing her other ear and kept flinching away from his empty hand. Finally, seeing as she was still too suspicious of his motives, he moved away from her and held out one of his own hands for her to see. With little effort he formed a golden-white ball of light on the palm of his hand, allowing it to grow in size until it was nearly covered his entire hand.

With a quick spin and flick of his wrist, he let the ball go and she watched as it shot into the sky and exploded upon contact with something, she hoped it wasn't a bird or, Kami forbid, an airplain! Turning back to her, he found that she was watching with eyes wide, amazement etched across her features.

"Now," He said, "Give me your hand."

It took a long time and lots of practice, but she finally successed in forming a very small, nearly transparent, orb from her own ki on her palm under Vegeta's hard guidence. She was proud of herself until he scoffed at her and told her what a pathetically weak thing she was. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to try again. Sweating, her eyes blurry from concentrating, she focused on finding that center of herself and pulling her energy upwards from it. When the ball began to form upon her palm she envisioned it being akin to a hunk of virgin clay, ready to be shaped and molded into what she desired, and, when she wanted to make the ki ball bigger, she imagined layering on more and more clay to the ball to make it grow in size.

"Hmm..." Vegeta commented, watching her progess, "Not bad. Better than your first try, that's for sure."

Tayven looked up, her dark hair hanging in her eyes and grinned. The moment she did so, however, she lost her focus and the ki ball dwindled and finally simmered down into nothingness. She knew the enegery had been sucked back inside herself to be called forth and used at a later time, but still, the loss of something she'd created from her own body made her feel...she wasn't sure...sad, she supposed. Silly as that was.

Without warning, Vegeta turned from her and snarled.

"Kakkarot..."

"What?" Tayven asked, "S-Sensei...what?"

Before he could answer her, Goku's form appeared on the horizon and he flew down to greet them. He was as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (well, if he HAD a tail, that is!) as ever and made Tayven want to smack him for looking so happy so early in the morning. Well, technically, it was almost noon...

Had he no sense at all?! "Hey, Vegeta! Tayven!" He grinned from ear to ear, "What are you two doing up so early?"

"Non of your business, Kakkarot! What are you doing here?" Vegeta glared and Goku merely laughed, as if he weren't take aback by Vegeta's icy tone at all.

"I just came by to see if you were interested in a little sparring," Goku said, stretching, "You know, keep the old muscles limber...but if your too busy with the kid, I understand..."

Snorting, Vegeta seemed to dismiss Goku as he looked at Tayven. "You go work on utilizing your ki. Kakkarot," He added, turning back to Goku, "Let's go."

Watching them fly off into the sky, Tayven held a hand over her eyes to block the glare from the sun and saw them become two glowing shapes against the blue of the crisp nearly-noon sky before they're movements became too fast for her naked eye, alone, to follow.

She began to work on manupilating her ki a bit more, until her stomach became envious of her attentions and made itself know in a most loud and unpleasent way.

"Oh, Tayven, dear..." Bunny smiled, making a beeline for her as soon as she'd walked into the room, "Bulma wanted met to let you know that you are to be staying a bit longer with us, dear, and that she will be taking you shopping after lunch...she wants you to be sure to be ready to go right after you eat."

Tayven nodded moved passed her as politely as she could, towards the kitchen. She felt a bit funny about just helping herself, but after she did so a few times the night before and no one said anything, she didn't think it was against the rules of the house. She found a tuna cassarole and scooped out a few hunks, microwaved the stuff on a dish and ate it quietly. Glancing at the clock, she noted the time as being a little bit after ten in the morning. She hadn't realized so much time had gone by!

Stuffing the last noodle from the casserole into her mouth, she resisted the urge to lick the plate and placed it in the sink, running water over it to rinse it for Bulma's mother. Running her hands through her thick black hair, Tayven sighed and looked around, suddenly restless. She wondered if Vegeta and Goku were finished yet so she could see what else Vegeta had to teach her. Walking outside, she gazed about for either sign of them, but they were nowhere to be seen. Probably off distroying some other poor sap's apartment, She thought grimly and began to walk. She figured a nice stroll would help clear her mind and help her think. She often went for walks alone when she needed to think and to still her restlessness.

She hadn't been walking for very long when she saw it. Squinting, she glared ahead of her until the shape took form and she could readily tell what it was that loomed out of the landscape. A house. Not just any house, but a very old house by the look of the arcitecture. It reminded her of homes she'd glimpsed in magizines a few times, what were they called? She asked herself as she walked up to it, placing her hands upon the faded and broken white picket fence and gazing at the house, Victorian? No, that wasn't right, Tudor! Yes that was it!

Though, in actuality, it looked like a cross between the two styles and, to make it even more bizzare, she noticed, it was shaped like a hexagon with many windows, all dark and some broken, marking it's walls all around. Whoever lived here was obviously not around anymore, She thought, still looking at it from the outside of the picket fence, If they were, this place wouldn't be in such bad shape...

"I dare you to go up and touch it!" She jumped at the sound of the voice and then turned her head slightly to see Gohan grinning at her. She looked around, but didn't see anyone else. "I double dog dare you!"

"Ugh, I don't have time for this..." She turned and started to walk away, but he stopped her.

"Unless your too scared..."

Spinning around, she stomped past him, flung the gate open so hard it slammed once against the side of the fence and then slammed shut again, and marched towards the old house's cracked and peeling front doors. I'll do more than merely touch the house, she thought, grim in her determination to disprove his theory that she was too scared. Reaching for the doorhandle she pushed and it gave, squeaking open on neglected hinges to allow her access.

"Hey! Tayven!" Gohan flew over to her and landed next to her, just as she was about to venture forth into the darkness of the house, "I never meant for you to go breaking and entering..."

"Shut up!" She hissed, walking into the house. After a moment's hesitation, Gohan followed. It struck her almost the moment she'd crossed the threshold. Gasping, she felt as she couldn't breath. Falling down onto the floor, she clutched at her throat, clawing at herself in her panic to get air into her lungs. Tears flooded her eyes and rolled down her cheeks and she looked up at the boy, who was staring down at her in muted shock, unable to fathom what he should do.

Her eyes turned towards the doorway desperately.

Almost before they knew it, the door creaked and suddenly slammed shut. Gohan ran to the door and tried to open it but it wouldn't budge. Looking back at Tayven, who was turning blue, he formed a ki blast and shot it at the wall, hoping to cause a big enough gap in the wall to get them out of there so she could start breathing normally again. He wasn't sure, but he had a feeling that whatever was happening to her had something to do with this odd house.

His ki blast was deflected and came shooting back towards him and Tayven. He shoved her out of the way and it exploded against the wall behind them, only, the wall, when the smoke cleared, was, amazingly, still in tact! However, Tayven, at least, wasn't suffocating any longer. Gasping, she became to breath normally, and sat up, hugging herself, looking around. When she removed her hands from her throat Gohan gasped when he saw the marks of someone's fingers wrapped about her slender neck. Marks that had not been there before they'd entered the house.

"S-Something...about this place..." Tayven whispered, horsely, "What do you know about this house, Gohan?"

"N-not much," Gohan said, looking around and trying to find a way out, everything seemed sealed beyond opening and not even his half-saiyan strength seemed a match to the prison the house had suddenly become, "To tell you the truth...I don't even remember it being here, until today...The I just thought; 'Oh, well, it had to have been here all along, didn't it?'"

Tayven scooped herself from the floor and walked slowly around towards the stairwell, noticing, by the light filtering in through the cracked windows, that the wooden steps were crumbling and falling apart, either due to age or insects or both. Grasping the bannister, she lifted her foot the first step, praying that it would hold her wieght. There was something up there, she knew, she could feel it. Something beyond the stairwell past the darkness of the hallway inside one of the abadoned bedrooms.

Something waiting for her.

She felt a hand on her arm, pulling her back. "No! Don't!" Gohan cried, "Those stairs! They're about to fall apart! It's too dangerous!"

She tried to pull her arm free, but he was strong, too strong. "Let me go, Gohan." She said, "I have to get up there...I just have to!"

She didn't know why it was so important, but suddenly it just was. She just had to get up those stairs. Down that hallway. Into that room. That room. It was calling to her. She felt it, not in words with her ears, but with something else, something inside herself. She felt something within that room calling, screaming, pleading with her to come. Come.

Come to it.

Without warning, Gohan wrapped his arms about her waist and lifted them both off the ground, using his ki to transfer them both into the air and up the stairs without touching them and risk injury. Tensing at first, Tayven relaxed, her arms about his neck as she watched the top of the stairs grow larger and larger as they neared the edge. When they'd reached the landing, Gohan let her go and she stepped away from him, still being drawn down the corridor, almost against her will.

She looked back at him once and he shuddered at the look in her dark eyes. It was as though she were begging for his help, but was unable to form the words, silently, her eyes screamed at him to do something, anything, as her feet keep walking of thier own accord. What was happening?! He wondered, panic making his heart pound, Why can't I just blast us out of here!? What is this place?!

Tayven...What's wrong with her?!

"T-Tayven..." He started, following her, not liking the darkness, the unnatural darkness, that seemed to engulf them like a lover's embrace on all sides, "I have a bad feeling about this..."