Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ With A Jagged Edge ❯ Control, Lost ( Chapter 3 )

Her eyes unfocused, hazy, she looked down the hallway and took a step, another. Gohan followed, not failing to notice the odd fog creeping along the hallway or how cold it had suddenly become. Was that a light leaking from the cracks around the doorway of the last bedroom? She grabbed his hand in her own, fast, and tugged him along with her, mumbling under her breath.

Tayven didn't know what was happening. She was scared. No, she was more than scared, she was completely fucking freaked the hell out! She had no will of her own anymore. Her body moved as though controlled by invisible strings, tugging her consceince mind along for the ride.

Easing open the door to the last bedroom, she pulled Gohan in behind her and the door slammed shut on them almost at once, startling them. Gohan fell at once into a defensive stance, glaring around, as she stood rigid, in the center of the room, holding her breath and waiting. Waiting for something but she did not know what. She took this time between what was to happen and nothingness to take a look around the room they had found themselves within.

It was small. She brushed her head against the ceiling, it was that tiny! The walls, which looked as though they had once been a pretty butter yellow with white daisies spread across them, were faded and the paper was peeling allowing some of the paneling to show through, like gaping holes in the ripped gi of an injured fighter. There was a small white bed in the corner, it's bedding long since submitted itself over to insects and age, tattered gray linin that looked to at one time have been white or off-white in hue. An old paint-chipped dresser the same color as the bed...used to be...sat against the wall and, she noticed several different types of old toys lay, broken or just abandonded, about the room.

She, and Gohan stood on a circular rug that looked as if it may have been rainbow colored and bright once upon a time. Now, it was a dingy collection of different shades of grays. The dolls sitting up against the dresser and wall around it looked at her through eyes which had lost thier sheen, dust covered them making them appear to be blind as well as inanimate. A chill ran up her spine and she knew it had nothing to do with the cold seeping into bones from this place.

Suddenly, she heard voices, many voices, children's voices, echoing around her and though her, pummeling her senses. She cried out and fell to the ground, upon her knees, holding her head, begging for it to stop. They were all around them, she could see them now! Children of all shapes and sizes, eyeing them, mocking them, laughing at them and then...drawing nearer...as though...as though...

They wanted something! Something from her...no...

She gasped as she watched them circle Gohan as well, reaching out with pale, ghostly, etheral hands that passed right through him yet left him shivering in thier wake nonetheless. One look in the boy's face told her was seeing and feeling and hearing them as she was. He tried to hide his fear, but she felt that too. The children...What did they want from them?! As if in answer to her private query, she saw one of them dive into her from her stomach, a sensation like lightning striking her causing her to bolt up and smack her head on the low ceiling. She cried out a tingling began at her fingertips, running a current all though her body and leaving her breathless, unaware that her body had begun to glow with a strange and frightening golden-blue aura.

The ghostly child who had taken her over slipped out, but did not fade from her visison. She watched as he smiled and held his hands out on either side of him towards his companions. She watched in horror as they closed the circle about her and Gohan, who'd been watching with muted horror, and began to concentrate...

Gohan, confused and angry that a bunch of ghosts could so hold him in place, cried out once as his power flared up, turning his hair from cronic black angles to straight up and golden, his eyes changing hue from brown to teal in a flash. Tayven saw all this in a moment and in a moment she realized what the ghostly children were after and in that same moment realized Gohan's folly.

She tried to scream to him, warn him, somehow, but nothing came from her mouth but sparks as her own enegry flaired up like a roman candle, out of control, unable to stop it, unable to control it.

With one last trace of her own self, her own strength, she flung herself at Gohan and shoved him to the floor. The ghosts were still around them, they hadn't broken thier circle, they were still trapped and now her enegry was entwining, circling, covering and becoming one with his own.

The children saw this and smiled, drawing closer, eyes holding them down as easily as thier intangible hands could not have. Being so close,

Tayven could not help hearing Gohan's heart beat against her chest and hear the echo of his thoughts as they rode on a current of thier bound power into her mind.

We're gonna die, aren't me?

No, Gohan! We have to fight back! We can't let them win!

But, they're so strong...and they're not even alive...how?! Are they what's keeping us locked in this house?!

You distract them...they are drawn to you...when you...you went super saiyan...I...I'll try to find a way out...maybe if they are busy they won't keep an eye on the rest of the

house...

She started to pull away from him, but he held onto her shoulders and pulled her back down, wrapping his arms about her neck and and clinging tightly to her small frame. She was confused, didn't he want her to find them a way out? Gohan?

No! Tayven! Don't! We can't seperate! I don't know how I know this, but we must not let go of each other! We have to stay together!

But...

Look at them! They're confused and anxious. They want us...our enegry...but they can only take so much, so soon. They want us to seperate so that they can have just one of us.

With our power connected like this, it stops them.

Yes, but for how long?

I don't...I don't know...

~*~*~

Bulma stood in the livingroom, dressed in a yellow blouse that hugged her curves and a short black miniskirt with a pair of black and yellow boots. She had her arms at her sides and was looking around in annoyance. She shoved her bangs out of her eyes and sighed; "Where is that girl? Mother, didn't you give her my message!?" Glancing at the watch on her delicate wrist she added; "It's not like I haven't anything better to do, oh no! Not Bulma! It's not like I have an enterprise to run or anything important like that!"

"Oh, I'm sure she just lost track of time, dear," Bunny said, busy dusting the funiture, "You know how young people are."

One of her cats hoped upon the sofa and started batting at the feather duster. Bunny chuckled and stroked a finger under it's chin, making it purr loudly before going back to her work. Bulma sank down onto the sofa and glared out the window. Suddenly, she leapt upwards and screamed, making Bunny jump out of her poor shoes, well, not literally, but almost! "Bulma! What is it, dear?!"

"M-Mother!" Bulma cried, raising a pointed finger, it's nail painted a bright shade of turquiose blue, "That light! Look!"

Bunny looked out the window and gasped. There was a bright light issueing out beyond the horizon, just over a large hill of rock and grass, so bright it seemed to be jostling the sun aside for attention. "What do you suppose...?" Bulma wondered, talking more to herself than to her mother; "A new enemy perhaps...?"

Before her mother could stop her, Bulma bolted for the door, yelling over her shoulder, "I'm gonna go check it out!"

"Bulma! Wait!"

Bulma was too far gone to hear her, she raced to her garage, grabbed her motorbike and started it up, hopping on and zooming in a cloud of dust towards the strange light. Her curiousity greatly outweighing any fear she had of approaching the oddity. She told herself that she needed to discovered what it was, not for her own sake, but for the sake of the scientific community.

She was just about there when she saw something fly downwards from the sky at such a speed she could not completely follow towards the illumination. Slowing down when the house came into view, a house she'd never before seen in her life and she'd live in these parts for longer than she could remember, and the figure crashed through one of the broken windows, causing glass and debris to fly outward towards her. Covering her face with her arms, the bike skidded to a halt and nearly flipped over, Bulma coughed, choking on the dust risen from her sudden stop and the busted window.

~*~*~

He had been meditating not too far away. His senses more alert than at any other time, he'd sensed something was wrong almost at once. He could feel a....wrongness...gathering at a certain point, a sensation that chilled his bones and set his teeth on edge.

When he'd felt Gohan, the boy who like a son to him, mentally cry out for help and slammed an image of what was happening into Piccolo's mind, the large namekian warrior had jumped up from his previous position, shouting out Gohan's name as he flew towards where he could pick up the boy's ki signature.

There was something strange about that, too, Piccolo noticed. The boy's ki seemed...different...like it was connected to another's. Almost like...fusion...but not quite. Piccolo shrugged it off as unimportant at the moment. He just needed to get Gohan to safety! He flew until he came to the house, an old house by the looks of it. But, where had it come from? He'd never seen it here before. And yet, yet it looked as if it had always been here.

He could feel the power pouring out of the old abode, fairly shaking it to it's foundations and threatening to blow the entire stucture sky high. He flew down and tried to punch through one of the upper windows, where he felt Gohan and now, he was certain of it now that he was closer, someone else inside, struggling, losing ground fast. He cried out as some type of current ran through his fist and up his arm. It felt much like smacking the side of a concrete building with a metal rod. The sensation viberated up his arm and down his spine.

He was knocked backwards by the contact.

~*~*~

Within the house, the ghostly children had been steadily getting stronger, feeding off of Gohan and Tayven as if they were merely battries to be used and once they'd run out of juice, to be discarded. Tayven watched in shock as they slowly became more focused, losing their etheralness, thier edges rounding out and sharpening. Their faces took on a more clear, real aspect and she whimpered as she looked down at her Gohan and realized that the hand holding onto his shoulder had become slightly transparent.

Gohan! What's happening to us! I...I'm scared...

She hadn't wanted to admit to being afraid, but she knew the boy could sense her fear as she could his and there was really no point in trying to deny it. She tried to clung tighter to him, her enegry mixed with his making them look like a glowing yellow-blue ball of overblinding light huddled on the floor of an anceint playroom.

I...I don't knw! I can't feel my hands...I feel strange...like I'm fading...

Me too! They're getting stronger! What can we do?!

They're feeding off our power...it's what's making them strong and able to become real! Tayven, I...I tried to power down...but I...can't...I have no control over it...

Tayven, tears falling down see-through cheek, nodded, she too had tried to call her enegry back into herself, but felt as if it were being dragged from her with a savagry she'd never before experienced. She trembled as the ghostly children laughed, delighting in thier newfound tangibility. Gohan gasped and she quickly darted her eyes back to him, afraid of something else being added to thieir list of complications.

Are you all right!?

It...it's Piccolo! I don't believe it! I tried to call out to him...I wasn't sure I'd gotten through, past the barriers the children have placed in the way, I mean...

Piccolo? Who's...

She didn't have time to finish as the wall near he dresser and window was suddenly broken from outside, dust and glass and broken dresser, with doll parts flying along with everything else, flew into the room, knocking the startled children backwards. However, they did not lose hands nor break thier circle. Tayven's eyes widened as she swived her head to see the largest, greenest, man she'd ever, in her entire life, saw! She watched as he, scowling, took note of the encircled children, and their prisoners slowly fading out of reality in their center.

"No!" Piccolo cried, crashing through the circle, breaking through linked arms and flinging the children aside as he rushed towards Gohan and Tayven. Almost as soon as the circle was broken, Tayven began to regain some feeling in her limbs. She looked at her arms wrapped about Gohan and saw that they were solid once more. Without waiting for an explantion, Piccolo grabbed both Tayven and Gohan by the scruff of thier clothing and flew them at once out of that house and away from it's influence.

Dropping them both on the ground, Piccolo glared at Gohan for being so foolish. Tayven tried to stand, lost her balance and fell back to the ground. Sitting on the ground, trying to regain some of her motor skills, she listened to Piccolo and Gohan discuss what had happened. Then, they turned to her and she was introduced to the namekian, who scowled darkly at her through ebony-hued eyes.

"What was with that place?" Gohan asked, "I mean, those kids...Who are they?"

"I think a better question would be," They turned to see Bulma approaching them, "Who were they?"