FERAL SCIENCE CHAPTER FIVE
By Kitsune
Gohan looked around warily. He wasn’t quite familiar with this area of the forest; it was pretty far away from his house. He wasn’t lost though. Not at all. Heck, if he got lost he could just fly up a bit and get a good look at the terrain from a birds eye view and find his way home easily. He figured flying around wouldn’t work to find Yari though, and that was the whole point of this little jaunt in the first place. He just wanted to find out why she’d gone into his house a second time and severely freaked out his mom.
Just when he thought it was kind of hopeless continuing like this (he was getting hungry too), something bounced sharply off his forehead.
“Go way!!” cried a familiar voice. Gohan looked down and saw a pine cone lying by his feet.
“Nani?” Another few pinecones bounced off his head.
“I said GO WAY!!!”
“Yari? Izzat you? Where are you…?” There was an awkward silence, then somebody spoke.
“Pervert boy…? What you do here?”
“Where are you?”
“Look up.” Gohan did as he was told. He looked up. WAY up. WAY, WAY up. You get the idea. Anyway, he caught a glimpse of blue hair hanging down from a branch at the very, very top of a huge nearby tree; surprisingly it wasn’t a pine tree.
“What’re you doing way up there?”
“Chuck pine cones.” Yari climbed down from the top of the tree in a matter of minutes, eventually coming to rest on a thick protruding limb a couple of meters above Gohan’s head. It was the closest branch to the ground that was to support her weight. She looked down at Gohan, puzzled.
“How’d you get way up there?” he said, sounding just as puzzled as Yari looked. She rolled her eyes.
“Climb, stupid. How else Yari get up?”
“I dunno. You could fly… You climbed all the way up there?!”
“Hai. What pervert boy do out here?” Gohan grinned almost sheepishly and put his hand behind his head.
“I was just wondering why you came to my house earlier today, that’s all…” Yari looked almost relieved. She looked away.
“Forget bandana in room.”
“Ohh…” there was another awkward silence. Gohan filled it by speaking again.
“You really climbed up this tree?!” She glared down at him, exasperated.
“Yes, Yari climb tree!!” Gohan considered giving it a light kick, then decided against it and kicked a different one, causing it to vibrate wildly.
“That must’ve been pretty hard. It doesn’t have any good branches for footholds or anything…” Yari narrowed her eyes and hopped down from her branch, landing neatly on both feet in front of Gohan.
“Does so have footholds! What problem, pervert boy no can climb easy trees?” she said, sounding slightly exasperated and gesturing towards the tree she’d just hopped down from. Gohan cocked his eyebrow.
“Um…no…
“Easy climb. Yari show how!”
“Um… oh…kay…”
And so, for the next 45 minutes, Gohan received the first tree-climbing lessons he had ever had. Yari showed him how to use certain notches and grooves in the bark to his advantages when climbing, and how to grab onto the base of each branch and not the sticky-outty bits, which snapped off too easily. He also learned many other things about the art of climbing trees, but if I went into detail about them this thing would take too long. Anyway, 45 minutes later, Gohan and Yari were both sitting on branches halfway up the huge tree opposite each other. Needless to say, this was the weirdest kind of training he’d ever received from anybody.
“See? Easy climb.” Gohan stared down at the ground, which was looking very far away at the moment…
“Um… yeah… easy climb…” Now he was just left wondering how he was going to get down from here… Fly probably.
Gohan suddenly cocked his head.
“What’s that?” Yari looked at him, puzzled.
“What what?”
“That ki… Oh, hey, its Piccolo-san!! Yari, wanna go say hi?” At this moment, Piccolo stepped into the clearing, quite a ways away from them, yet still within seeing range. Yari jerked back in horror.
“That… that Pico-sand what you talk about?!” she hissed. Gohan nodded.
“Yeah. What, d’you know each other?” Yari didn’t answer, but began scuttling away, then reached up and began climbing higher up the tree.
“Bye Go-haan pervert boy.”
“Huh?! Where’re you going?” By now, Piccolo’s acute hearing had picked up on them and he had begun to walk over. When he saw Gohan sitting in a tree, he paused, looking very confused.
“Gohan? What are you doing in a tree?” Gohan grinned.
“Hi Piccolo-san! Hey, have you met Yari?” Yari froze just as she was about to put a foot up on a branch. Her eyes widened and she started making wild cut-it-out gestures at Gohan, who didn’t notice. Piccolo looked up.
“Hey!!” Yari’s eyes narrowed. Then she jumped down and landed on the branch Gohan was sitting on.
She promptly put him in a headlock.
“Back off, pervert man!! Yari take pervert boy hostage!”
“Nani?!” cried Gohan. A single large sweatdrop appeared next to Piccolo’s head. He knew Gohan had a tendency to get captured a lot, but this was just ridiculous…
“Serious!! Pervert man back off or pervert boy gets it! Yari…Yari drop pervert boy!” This time, a large sweatdrop appeared next to both Piccolo and Gohan’s heads; they both knew that even if she did drop him, Gohan could just float safely to the ground. Piccolo figured that this was the stupidest attempt at taking a hostage that he’d ever seen.
Gohan calmly inserted his hand between Yari’s arm and his neck, then forced it away. He ducked under her arm and took a step to the side, so he was now standing beside her.
Then he jumped off the branch. Yari had a sudden horrible image of Gohan lying with a broken neck on the ground, let out a cry and made a grab at his shirt, but missed and lost her balance in the process. Gohan floated safely to the ground, landing neatly on one foot. Yari landed in Piccolo’s arms, which was a surprise for both of them. She let out a yell and bit him sharply on the wrist, causing him make a sound that suggested he was biting back a cry of pain and to drop her on the ground. She quickly recovered and scrambled to her feet, taking a few steps back and taking out her stick in the process.
“Back off or Yari bite again!!” Piccolo rolled his eyes. Gohan just sorta gaped at her. One minute she was giving him tree climbing lessons, the next she was taking him hostage and threatening to bite his best friend.
“Yari, what’s with you?!” Yari didn’t answer. Her eyes grew wide and filled with terror, she pointed a shaking finger behind them.
“Uh…uh…oh…” she said fearfully. Gohan, curious, glanced behind him.
Yari was off like a shot.
“What is it? I don’t see anythi—“ he turned around, as he spoke, he trailed off when he realized that neither of his friends were there. Both Piccolo and Yari had disappeared.“Get back here!!” yelled Piccolo. He was getting more annoyed by the second, mainly because he found it extremely inconvenient that he couldn’t just fly after Yari due to the density of the trees in the area. Yari turned around and stuck out her tongue at him, putting her thumbs in her ears and waggling her fingers around as she ran.
“Never take alive pervert man!!”
“DON’T CALL ME THAT!!!” Yari put on an extra burst of speed. She was surprisingly fast for somebody her size.
Suddenly, her foot connected with a particularly inconvenient root. Yari slammed into the ground so hard that she got the breath knocked out of her and Piccolo nearly trampled her. Instead, he screeched to a halt just in time.
Yari slowly got to her feet, getting air back into her lungs and fixing him with a cautious glare as she did.
“Okay… Yari go down, go down fighting!!”
“Nani?!” She lunged at him kicked him in the gut, then uppercutted him on the chin. Piccolo took a step back; neither of the blows had really hurt.
“What the heck are you trying to do?!”
“Pervert man want kill Yari, Yari no go down so easy! Go down fight!!”
“Want…kill?! What are you talking about?! I wasn’t going to hur--!!” Yari ignored him, reared back her fist and punched him in the gut. Piccolo, struck by a sudden idea, disappeared from sight. Yari stopped and cautiously looked around. Piccolo reappeared behind her and grabbed the tip of the stick, which was sticking (ouch, bad pun!) out from its sheathe. Yari let out a cry and whirled around. Before she could do anything, Piccolo lightly yanked the stick out of its sheathe, spinning it around till he got a good grip on it. Yari fixed him with a viscous glare.
“What you do?! Give back stick!!”
“Nope. The stick is my hostage.” He replied, almost airily. A huge sweatdrop appeared by Yari’s head.
“Nani?!” She grinned oddly, with a look on her face that said you’ve got to be kidding. For some reason, Piccolo detected a note of uncertainty in her expression.
“What, pervert man think Yari go crazy if stick take away? Hah!!” Piccolo’s expression was blank. He held the stick out horizontally in both hands and raised his knee up, as if he was about to snap the piece of wood over it. Yari flinched. Piccolo grinned.
“Frankly, yes.” Yari growled and lunged at him, jumping up and grabbing the arm that held the stick. She hauled herself up as if she were doing chin-ups and opened her mouth; her fangs glinted in the sunlight. Piccolo jerked back, he had a feeling he knew what she was going to do. He quickly transferred the stick to his other hand just as she sunk her teeth into his wrist so deeply that she drew blood.
“OW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” gritting his teeth, Piccolo whacked Yari sharply on the head with her stick. The girl yelled and let go, falling on the ground with a dull thud and rubbing her head where a large bump now was. Piccolo smirked; he was beginning to see why she liked this thing so much.
After a few more failed attempts to retrieve her stick, Yari backed away and stared glumly at the ground, breathing hard. Her shoulders slumped.
“Fine. Pervert man win. You want kill Yari, hurry up get over with…” Piccolo raised a brow ridge.
“I already said I wasn’t going to hurt you, you stupid runt!! What makes you think I’d waste my time killing you?!” Yari glared up at him, not sure if she should be offended by his implication that killing her would be a waste of time.
“What you mean? Pervert man no want kill Yari? But…but Yari run off on fight other day…” then her eyes suddenly narrowed. “No call runt!!!” She lunged at him again; he took a step back, causing her to stumble a bit.
“Look, just answer some questions and you can have your stick back. Deal?” Yari resumed glaring at him.
“Yari think that called blackmail…” Piccolo sat down crosslegged on the grass, laying the stick down by his side and staring at Yari sardonically.
“Yeah, well, you don’t get many options when the person you’re trying to interrogate keeps running off like a scared rabbit every time you see them. So sue me.”
“What question want ask?” Yari replied, sitting down on a nearby rock.
“Just… just who the hell are you?! How d’you know Namekian and why can’t I sense your ki?” the girl paled, then grinned almost nervously.
“Well, that hard question… Name Yari.”
“I already know your name, baka! Answer the dang question!!” Yari looked away, then grinned hopefully and pointed at a nearby squirrel, which was regarding them with a cocked head.
“Hey, look squirrel! Squirrel watch!” Piccolo’s eyes narrowed and a vein bulged in his forehead. He stood up. His arms shot out and grabbed Yari by the collar, holding her up to eye level.
“QUIT CHANGING THE SUBJECT!! THIS IS SERIOUS!!” She regarded him with wide innocent eyes.
“No like squirrels?”
“No! I don’t like squirrels! They’re annoying and they make that stupid chittering noise all day lo—THAT’S NOT THE ISSUE HERE!! Who are you and why in hell can’t I sense your ki?! Are you an android or something?!”
“What android?” a huge sweatdrop appeared beside Piccolo’s head.
“… You…don’t even know… what an android is?!”
“No. Give back stick!”
“No, I already told you, you’re not getting that branch back until you gimme some answers. An android is… well, have you ever heard of a robot?” Yari’s eyes hardened for some reason, there was something weird about her expression, but he couldn’t tell what.
“Hai. Know robot.”
“An android is kind of like a robot, except it looks human. It’s almost like an artificial human. Since they’re not really alive, they don’t have a ki. Is that what you are?” Yari only shrugged in response.
“You don’t know, or you do know but aren’t going to tell me?” He said, glancing at the stick for effect. He didn’t really plan on doing anything to the stupid branch, but it was a good bluff for the moment. He couldn’t see why she liked the dang thing so much.
“First one.”
“You really don’t know? You’re not lying?”
“No. I no lie with stick at stake. Put down now? Yari like air…”
“Oh. Right.” He let go of her collar, she stumbled a bit when she landed on the ground, but quickly recovered. “What’s with you and that stick, anyway? You like it too much…”
“None business of you.” She gave him a sour look as she adjusted her collar.
“Okay, next question. How did you know how to speak Namekian?” Yari stared at him blankly.
“Nam…eck…ee…in?” there was a long, embarrassed silence.
“You’re not going to tell me you don’t know what Namekian is, are you?” she suddenly looked slightly sheepish.
“Um… what Nam-eck-ee-in?” Piccolo slapped his forehead.
“Baka! You were speaking it, for kami’s sake!” she still looked pretty clueless.
“When Yari speak?”
“During the fight we had the other day. That last attack you did before you took off. You said it in Namekian.” Yari grinned.
“Oh, that. That first language what Tou-san teaches Yari. <Then he taught me Japanese>.” Yari said the last sentence in Namekian, which made Piccolo’s eyes bug out considerably.
“You…can speak… Namekian?! And he could speak Namekian?!” Yari nodded.
“If that what call, Yari speak.” She said, lapsing back into Japanese.
“How’d he know Namekian?” Yari shrugged.
“Wait a minute… he wasn’t a Namek, was he?” Yari shrugged. Then it hit Piccolo that if she didn’t know what Namekian was she probably wouldn’t know what a Namek was either.
“Did he look anything like me.” He added hurriedly. Yari glanced back and forth from him to the stick, then gave him a sour look.
“Hai, Tou-san look like Pervert-man, only he handsome, he not pervert like you and he no wear funny hat! And Tou-san nice and never take sticks hostage!!!” She crossed her arms and stuck her tongue out at him at the end for emphasis.
“Well maybe if certain people were a bit more cooperative, I wouldn’t have to take their sticks hostage, did you ever think of that?!” Piccolo snapped in response. Then his eyes widened.
“Wait a minute… did you just say your dad looked like me?!” Yari fixed him with an extremely mocking glare.
“Hai. What wrong, pervert man? No can hear Yari? Should able hear, when have big ears like bat.”
“Don’t call me that!!” Yari glared at him sourly again, then glanced at her stick.
“Anyway, Yari not sure why pervert man no can sense ki. Tou-san say Yari different from people. Maybe that it.”
“Wait a minute. If your dad was…was Namekian, who was your mother? Did you have one?” Yari shrugged.
“Don’t know. Stick back now?” Piccolo didn’t respond, his mind was racing. How could her father have possibly been Namekian?! Nameks didn’t…when they had kids; they didn’t spit out kids that looked like this! They spat out more Nameks, not…not androids! If she was even an android at all. No, now he was sure of it, she had to be an android. Then again, if her dad were a namek, that would explain the fangs, pointy ears, and knowledge of the language… But wait a minute, Namekians had a unique ki signature… he should’ve been able to tell if there was another Namek skulking around…
“Do you know anybody named Dr. Gero?” Yari cocked her head.
“Hmm… nope.”
“Okay, just one more question. How come you’re living in the woods? Why not with your dad?” Yari’s eyes hardened and she stared at the ground.
“Tou-san dead. Always live in woods, where else Yari go? Tou-san used say city not good, so Yari no go there…” there was a few moments of silence, then Piccolo wordlessly chucked the stick at Yari. She narrowly avoided being whacked on the head with it, and caught it in the nick of time. The two of them got to their feet. Then Piccolo whacked her sharply over the head with his fist.
“Ow!! What that for?!” she cried, rubbing the new bump on her head.
“That was for insulting my turban.”“…That was…odd…” Gohan was still pretty confused as to what had just happened. After a few minutes, he began to wonder if he should make an attempt to find Yari and Piccolo, if anything, just to break up any possible fights. The only problem was the fact that Piccolo hadn’t raised his ki, and come to think of it, he couldn’t sense Yari’s ki at all…
Not finding anything else to talk about, Yari and Piccolo began wandering off in opposite directions, taking extreme care to ignore each other.
CRUNCH.
“Ne?!” Both of them turned around in surprise, although Yari looked slightly more agitated than Piccolo.
“What was that?” he asked to nobody in particular. Yari warily looked around.
“Kuso… not now!!” she muttered under her breath. Due to his finely tuned hearing, Piccolo heard her.
“What d’you mean ‘not now’?” Yari whirled around to face him, shocked.
“H-how you hear m—“ She was cut off by a large grappling hook slamming into the ground next to her foot. She whirled around again. Piccolo’s eyes bugged out.
A huge silver robot stepped out of the trees. It was easily twice as tall as Yari, even taller than Piccolo. It looked somewhat like a rather squarish spider, if the spider had been made of metal, had two guns on either side of its thorax and only had three legs on each side of its body, that is. (Little change of pace, ne? ^_^)
The thing shot another grappling hook at Yari; she jumped out of the way just in time and rolled on the ground, quickly hopping to her feet. She looked over her shoulder at Piccolo.
“Run!! Get out here!!” she yelled, dodging another grappling hook. Piccolo crossed his arms, but didn’t move. Yari scrambled up a tree, jumped off of a branch, and landed on the monster’s back. She whipped out her stick.
While she was doing this, another robot exactly like the one she was battling lunged out of the bushes behind Piccolo. He noticed just as the thing jumped at him. Piccolo ducked down, grabbed the thing’s leg and flung it at the ground. He powered up a bit, formed a ball of ki in his hand, and threw it at the robot with a yell.Gohan grinned suddenly. There it was! Piccolo’s ki! But… wait a minute… why was it raised in the first place? And why could he still not sense Yari’s ki at all?! He sighed. Leave those questions for later. Just find out what was going on right now. Without a backward glance, he flew off in the direction of Piccolo’s ki.
Yari powered up a bit and promptly slammed her stick into the robot’s back. She shoved her hand into the resulting hole; it resurfaced holding a mess of brightly colored wires. She put her stick underneath the loop of wires, then jerked sharply upwards, snapping them all in half. Almost immediately, the thing’s actions began to slow. The girl hopped off of its back, landing neatly on one foot. The robot staggered around as though it were drunk, and shot a few more grappling hooks at her. One actually managed to wrap around her leg, but that didn’t stop her from firing a ki blast at its torso. Needless to say, the thing exploded.
Meanwhile, Piccolo had made quick work of the other one; it was already blown up. The Namek turned towards Yari, arms crossed.
“I take it you know what those things were…?” she grinned almost mischievously and shook her head.
“Nooo…. Why Yari know?” There was another rustling sound from behind Piccolo. They both whirled around to face it, Yari once again looking more agitated than him. To their relief, a small, nervous looking squirrel scurried out of the brush, trotting along the ground, almost completely hidden by the grass. Yari breathed a sigh of relief.
“Okay… just squirrel…” Piccolo raised a brow ridge and took a small step forwards.
“Why would you be so nervous if you didn’t know what those things were in the first place? And why did they only go after you?” the girl grinned again, a little more nervously this time.
There was another rustling sound, coming from the same place. Yari rolled her eyes, still grinning.
“More squirrel…”
A massive chrome robot, twice the size of the ones they had just fought, stepped out of the trees. This one was mostly shaped like a human, instead of a spider. It stomped right on the squirrel that had just scurried out; there was a barely audible squeak, which was mostly drowned out by a noise that sounded a lot like “squish”. They both stared up at the thing, even Piccolo’s eyes were wide. Yari only had one thing to say, staring up at this behemoth of a robot.
“Biiiiiiiiig…”Gohan narrowed his eyes in frustration. Dang! Piccolo’s ki was gone again! Whatever he’d been doing, he’d finished it up pretty quickly…
Piccolo narrowed his eyes. Okay. May as well get this thing over with as soon as possible… He took a step back, charged up his ki again, and fired a large ki blast at the thing with a yell.
To his surprise, the robot disappeared from sight, reappearing right behind Yari. His precious ki blast exploded a nearby tree. For its bulk and size, the robot was incredibly fast. Yari spun around and ducked when it made a grab at her, then jumped up and spin-kicked it in the side. She knocked the thing back a little, but not much. Piccolo fired another ki blast at it.
Gohan was severely confused now. Piccolo’s ki was coming and going. What the heck was he doing?! Welp, there was only one way to find out. He took a small hop into the air and flew off in the direction of his ki.Piccolo’s ki blast actually hit it this time, taking a chunk out of its side. Problem was, the thing didn’t seem to notice. It just turned around and reached for Yari again, as if nothing had happened. This actually seemed to shock Yari more than it did Piccolo.
“Wh-what hell?! Why no hurt thing?!” She jumped up and leapfrogged over the thing’s fist, landing on the ground and firing a ki blast at its knee. It missed, and she muttered a large string of Namekian swear words. Then she turned around to face Piccolo.
“Yari think…” she paused, unable to phrase her sentence in regular Japanese. “<I thought I told you to get out of here!!>” The girl yelled in Namekian instead. The robot made another swipe at her head, firing a ki blast at the spot where she stood with its other hand. Yari yelped and tried to jump out of the way. Instead, the blast from the resulting explosion sent her crashing into a nearby tree. Piccolo rolled his eyes and fired another ki blast at the thing. This didn’t do any good either.
“You did. What’s your point?” she made an exasperated noise and slapped her forehead.
Then Gohan landed in the clearing, making both their eyes bug out in unison, Yari in particular.
“Pervert boy!! What you do here?! Get out here, now!!!” Gohan didn’t reply. It’s a bit of a shock when you go to check up on what your friends are doing and end up face to face with a robot the size of two-story house.
“What…is…that?”
“Pervert boy run!! Get out here, bakaAAAGH!!!
One huge metal hand clamped onto her right arm (the right hand, to be exact). The other made a grab at her head, but missed. Instead, one of its fingers got caught in Yari’s tangled and knotted hair, so the thing settled for seized her hair in its hand instead. Then it lifted her clear off the ground with both hands.
Yari let out a cry of pain and started flailing around her free arm and both legs, but the robot was holding her out too far away for her to actually make contact with his body. All of a sudden, there was a flash of red light coming from the palm of the thing’s right hand, the one that was holding her arm. Yari’s actions began to slow down, as if she were gradually losing energy.
Gohan’s eyes widened.
“…Um…that…that can’t be good…” Yari was now yelling something that sounded suspiciously like “Kusokusokusokusokuso!!!” Gohan blinked, then decided to take action. He powered up his ki, and charged at the thing with a yell.
Piccolo shrugged inwardly. Heck, may as well join in. He put both hands out in front of him and began concentrating his ki.
Gohan took a small jump and flew right at the thing’s chest. He actually intended just to headbutt the robot, but instead he ended up crashing straight through and coming out the other side. As you can imagine, this robot didn’t have much of a chest left now, due to this new hole in its stomach and the chunk that Piccolo had blown out of its side earlier.
Yari aimed her free hand somewhere in the robot’s general direction, powered up what was left of her energy, and fired. She ended up taking a chunk out of its foot. She muttered a string of namekian swear words under her breath. Yari looked up, as far up as she could look with the thing holding onto her hair at least. She swore again. The only way she’d be able to fire a ki blast up there was if her shoulder was double jointed or something. Then she looked down at Gohan.
“Head!!! Aim for head!!! He jerked his head up.
“What?”
“Aim for head!!!!” just as she said this, Piccolo fired his ki blast. Unfortunately, it wasn’t headed for the robot’s head; it was on a course for its right hand.
Gohan shrugged. Okay, aim for the head. Powering up his ki, he did just that.
In the next 10 seconds, several things happened.
Gohan’s blast connected with the robot’s head. The head exploded, and the robot immediately slowed down, then keeled over and fell on its back with a large thud.
As a result of this, its grip on her hair loosened, and it let go.
Lastly, Piccolo’s blast connected with the right hand. There was a large explosion, then Yari fell on the ground with a scream.
Unfortunately, this was because she no longer had an arm for the robot to hold.
Yari slowly sat up with a groan, holding her head.
“…Oww…” she muttered. Then she turned around to stare at the remains of the robot beside her. “That one…different…” Yari gave her head a quick shake, then turned to look at Gohan and Piccolo. Gohan was staring at her in horror, Piccolo’s eyes were much wider than usual. She blinked.
“What problem?”
“Look at…at your…” Gohan stammered, pointing a shaky finger at her arm. Or rather, lack thereof. Yari glanced down. Instead of her arm there, like she expected, a tangled mess of multicolored wires dripping with blood was sticking out. The girl paled immediately and her eyes widened in terror. That was when the pain registered. She let out a small moan, then screamed.
She promptly fainted.
“…Arm…” Gohan finished lamely. Piccolo turned away with his arms crossed.
“I didn’t faint when I got my arm blasted off…” he muttered to himself.“…Um… Piccolo-san?” Piccolo opened one eye to look at Gohan. They’d leaned Yari up against a tree, at least until she woke up, and Gohan had bandaged up her wounds.
“…Hn?” he grunted in response.
“Do you and Yari know each other?” Piccolo shut his eye again.
“Well… we’ve met…” Gohan suddenly burst into a grin, the same kind of grin that Einstein probably did when he figured out that E=mc2. It was the grin that people did when they discovered something.
“Oh, I get it! Is she your old girlfriend or something, Piccolo-san?”
“WHAT?!” he screeched. Then he regained some of his composure. “I’m asexual, remember?! I don’t…I don’t do girlfriends!! And even if I did, it sure as hell wouldn’t be with that little--” Gohan grinned.
“Okay, okay, I get the idea…Anyway, you’ve met before?”
“Mm-hmm.” Said Piccolo, reverting back to his regular, unspazzing state. Then he realized something. Eventually he’d have to tell somebody about…well, about what he’d found out about Yari. May as well start with Gohan.
“Hey… you’ve noticed her… her ears and fangs, haven’t you?” Gohan nodded.
“Yup. The antennae too.” Piccolo’s eyes bugged out.
“The WHAT?!”
“The antennae.” Gohan said matter of factly. Piccolo quickly made an effort to regain his composure. Well, she’s got pointy ears, fangs, speaks namekian and claims her dad was a namekian, so why not antennae? He thought to himself. Despite this, he was still a little shaken.
“Anyway,” he continued, maintaining his composure this time around, “I think she’s part Namekian. I know she can speak Namekian and she says her dad was a Namek…” Gohan nodded.
“Yeah… that would make sense… but wait a minute, how could she be half namekian? Who would her mom be? Hey, is it even possible for a Namek and a human to--“
“DON’T GO THERE!!!!!” Piccolo took a deep breath, regaining his (once again) lost composure. “Just…don’t go there. You really, REALLY don’t want to get in a discussion about Namekian anatomy, okay?”
“But is it possible? I’ve been wondering about that for a long ti--“
“DON’T GO THERE!!!!” Piccolo took another deep breath. This was the third time in one afternoon he’d lost his composure; he was setting a new record.
“Anyway…” he continued, putting particular emphasis on the anyway, so it was made clear that he was changing the topic for good, “There’s one other thing. I think she’s an android.” Gohan nodded again.
“Yeah… that would explain why I couldn’t sense her ki… but would that mean she…Dr Gero? She’s not evil and I’m pretty sure she’s not out to kill dad…”
“She said she doesn’t know who he is. To be truthful, I’m not quite sure she really knows who she is either. I’m stumped too.” Gohan suddenly grinned.
“Oh man, Trunks is going to have a nervous breakdown when he hears about this! Another android for him to worry about…” Piccolo smirked. Now that he thought about it that way, he did feel kind of sorry for Trunks.
“I guess we should tell the others about her.” Gohan grinned again, a touch of evilness to it.
“I call dibs on phoning up Trunks! If I can’t see his reaction, I at least want to hear it!” Piccolo smirked again. Dang, that kid could be almost evil if he felt like it…
“You do that. Get back to me on his reaction.” Gohan grinned even more.
“Will do. See ya, Piccolo!” with that, he took a small jump and flew off into the sky.
“Nghh…?” Piccolo glanced over his shoulder and saw Yari, who was now sitting up and looking slightly groggy.
“Back among the living now?” She looked around, then grimaced when she saw the bandages.
“Where pervert boy…?”
“Who? Oh, you mean Gohan. He left.” Secretly, Piccolo was glad to find that he wasn’t the only one stuck with the pervert nickname.
Suddenly, Piccolo was struck by inspiration.
“Hey…”
"What you want?" she said, holding the spot where her arm used to be with her other hand. An odd combination of wires and cables were sticking out from the wound and blood was slowly dripping from it and forming a small red pool on the ground.
"Look, if you're really half-namekian, there might be a way to get your arm back. Just do as I say, okay?" Yari narrowed her eyes in suspicion.
“Why should believe?”
“D’you want your arm back or not?” she stared at the ground for a few seconds, then nodded. What the hell. She had nothing to lose, except maybe her other arm…
“Hai. What do?”
“Okay. Concentrate your ki on your…well, where your arm used to be. While you’re at it, concentrate on the cells rebuilding.” Yari actually didn’t know what a cell was, but she gritted her teeth and did her best anyway. Soon enough, a brand new arm popped out, covered in slime. Yari recoiled in shock.
“Eeew! What…what this?!” Piccolo smirked a little.
"It’s an arm. What did you think it was, a squirrel?" She gave him another glare, but turned around and gingerly began moving her arm around.
“Hmmm… work okay…”
“What was with those robots earlier?” Yari froze, then instinctively grabbed her stick and put it beside her.
“None business of you.”
“Even after I just showed you how to regenerate your arm?” Yari’s expression became one of somebody who was about to say something, but whose train of thought was cut off, resulting in her mouth just hanging open.
“Er…” she swore under her breath. “Fine. Pervert man win. You right, robot things after Yari.”
“Why?” Yari paused, then sighed.
“You keep bugging Yari if no tell?” Piccolo nodded.
“Fine. Robots after Yari, want take to bad place. No tell more. And pervert man no can steal stick again, Yari have good grip this time.” Piccolo hesitated. Nah. He wouldn’t pry any more. That was enough information for today. Maybe too much, even.
Without any kind of notice, Yari stood up, dusting herself off, then started walking off.
“Where’re you going?” Without turning around, she answered him.
“Home. If pervert man follow, Yari kill.”
“I seriously doubt that, but whatever.” She paused, then shook her head and ran off into the woods. Once she was out of sight, he picked up on a lone cry with his finely tuned hearing.
“Yari could kill if really tried!!” Piccolo wordlessly stood up, dusted himself off, and wandered off to find somewhere better to meditate. If he stuck around here, he’d keep staring at the remains of those robots and wouldn’t be able to concentrate.
Finally, he sat down by a large tree overrun by moss. Just as he was drifting into meditation, he said one thing to himself.
Yeah right…When pigs fly…