Consuming Madness - Chapter 3

Beat Me If You Can, Survive If I Let You



"All right, we've gathered here to see how we're going to handle this," Gohan said. The remaining Z-fighters nodded, they sat or stood around the table in Son Goku's house. It had been a few days after the gruesome massacre that began with Bra and ended with Tien. The dead had been buried and their hearts mourned, but that didn't stop the Z-fighters from facing the problem. Who did this, why, and where did he go?

HE, probably because Vegeta insisted he fought the killer in the morgue where his daughter had been. Still, various things crumbled his theory into pieces. They had the security videotape from the morgue that was taped during the event where the Man in Black somehow caught Vegeta by surprise and then put a mysterious thing about Bra's face.He was out of sight for a minute, then came back and took Bra's hand as he knelt. The Man in Black hadn't harmed the hand in any way, and his back was to the camera so you couldn't see what he was doing or saying. Then he got up, said something to Vegeta, who had missed him by a minute, and left.

The bottom line was that, based on tests done on Tien, Chaozu and Lunch's bodies, the Man in Black was in the morgue at the same time that the one who killed Tien, Chaozu and Lunch carried out his gruesome act . Vegeta had argued that the man must have some teleportation powers, like Kakarott's Instantaneous Teleportation, but even if that were true, something else that Vegeta had seen, or more precisely sensed, was even more damning to his vehement theory, that the man in black was the killer.

The man in black had a ki. Vegeta could feel it because it was so strong for a human.Surely it dwarfed Mr. Satan, and it might even be on the level of Tien and Yamcha.

When the police came for the bodies, each of the Z-fighters tried to distract themselves from the terrible tragedy by hunting down the killer's ki. If he could overpower Chaozu and Tien, he had to have a ki.

But they hadn't felt anything, and they had burned themselves out from trying.

Vegeta had even brought a scouter. There was nothing there. The killer had no ki, but he drew his power from another source.

If the man in black had been the killer ... they would have felt him.

Gohan was sure that even Vegeta knew, deep down. But he let him cling to it. In the past few days Vegeta had been more vulnerable than ever, and he needed his friends and everything else to keep himself sane. Because if Vegeta fell, Earth would feel the consequences.

"OK, first point: The man in black that Vegeta fought. He is our strongest suspicion. Any ideas how he can manage his ... tasks ...?", Said Gohan and pushed his glasses back up on his nose.

A few came, mostly from Vegeta, who was standing in a corner and looking at anyone unless he was talking to someone. Trunks threw in a few too. Trunks was somehow worse than his father. Vegeta had a couple of outbursts of anger that redecorated some landscapes as he tried to work through his grief, but Trunks had locked himself away after his crying fit in Gohan's arms. Instead, he had retired to his mother's laboratory and refused to see anyone, even his best friend Goten, who was hurt by it. Really, his little brother was visibly affected as he sat next to Marron on the couch. Ordinarily he would have put an arm around her or held her hand, but instead he sat and didn't even look at her.Marron gave him brief glances, worried looks, but Goten was completely focused on his older brother.

The rest of the fighters sat around the table and chairs, all with a range of emotions. Goku was sitting with Chichi, who was wringing her hands every ten seconds. She had known Bulma best of all and she had taken it hard. Goku comforted his wife as best he could while he paid silent attention to his eldest son. Vegeta stood in his corner, eyes down. It was such a change from Vegeta's normal arrogant lean and cocky[MS: thin and presumptuous]grin that Gohan had to resist repeating every time he looked at him to make sure it was Vegeta too. Trunks sat in an armchair, his face looked like he was around a hundred years old and his hands supported his head from time to time via his fingers on his forehead and temples. Yamcha sat in another armchair.Bulma's condition had hit him hard too, because despite their separation, he still loved her in a certain way. One couch was occupied by Goten, Marron, C18 and Kuririn. Videl was sitting in another chair, Pan on her lap. Oob was in another corner. The only one missing was Piccolo, who was on a mission to New Namek. Goku had reported the events to him via Kaiou-sama and he had said he would try to come back as soon as possible. Gohan had even considered contacting Mr. Satan and Fat Boo, but he decided against it. Tien, Chaozu, Lunch, and Bra had been her friends, not theirs, and in this case, it was a family business.

"OK. Let's say the man in black isn't the killer, then who is it? Any suggestions?"

"I spoke to Dende and Kaiou-sama. They tried to find him, but were not lucky. Dende says, as far as he can tell, the killer went to ... Tien ... into the refout woods.These forests are huge and he could be anywhere in them ... ", Goku began.

"Then let's rub it down to the floor!" Vegeta yelled as he came out of his corner.

"I agree with my father!" Said Trunks and got up.

Goten trembled. According to the map his brother had drawn about the route the killer had probably taken after killing Bra, he was right in the middle of it. He could only have missed it by a few minutes or seconds, and that upset him.

"Vegeta, that wouldn't do anything because we don't know if Burning Down would expose him, and secondly, we could kill him in the process. Anyone want to give this bastard a quick death?" Gohan said.

"NO!" Came the unanimous answer. Chichi wrung her hands at her son's angry words, but said nothing. In her heart, for what the man had done to Bulma and her daughter, she wanted him to share a fate that was just as cruel as the one he had inflicted on them.

Vegeta was back in his corner, Trunks back in his chair. Gohan made a sound of relief.

"OK, besides burning the forest to the bottom, does anyone have any idea how we can find the killer?"

The debate lasted late into the night.



Elsewhere, Vengeance broke into a laboratory in a company called the Capsule Corporation. Now he was downloading all the information he could get about this strange world, especially all about his defenders. Slowly, Vengeance was learning about the Z-fighters, their adventures and battles, how the world saw them (some weak idiot named Mr. SATAN, of all things, took all the honor), and everything else.

"No wonder that garden gnome could take so many taser shots," he muttered, referring to his fight with Vegeta. Vegeta was more powerful than anything he had ever seen, except for the greatest fighter on the planet, and maybe even the universe, Son Goku.

But Vengeance doubted they'd ever met anyone like Agony. Sure, they had fought against living beings that could regenerate, more precisely two fighters named Perfect Cell and Majin Buu. He had studied these files carefully, praying that perhaps the fighters had something in common with the threat they were now facing. But his heart sank when he read about the exact details of these opponents' regenerative powers. It was nothing compared to Agony. She was in a class of her own.

Vengeance read late into the night, thanking the woman known as Bulma Briefs, whoever she was, for putting this information together.



"OK, that's all. We'll meet tomorrow and see what else we can do. Don't forget, stay together, take care, and be vigilant for EVERYTHING," Gohan concluded. He hoped those words would be enough to protect her, and he prayed that whoever the killer was, they could find him before he took any more life.



Trunks walked slowly back into his mother's lab, his mind preoccupied with dark thoughts all the way. No one, not even his father, knew of the rage that burned in his heart.

*I'm almost done. I will avenge you Bra. I will. I promise it! *

He let himself in with the key and turned on the light.

The first thing he saw was that the computer was on.

And the second, that someone wearing black disappeared through the window.

"HEY! COME BACK!" Shouted Trunks. In seconds he was out the window and on the floor.

His eyes scanned the area, but whoever jumped out the window was just ... gone.

His mind was wild that he might find the killer, so he turned the entire C.C. estate upside down and searched everything. He found no one except the security guards and house guards, none of them had seen anyone or anything.

Fuming with anger that he might have let the killer escape, Trunks' rage exploded as his mind focused on one thing. He stomped back into the laboratory, not planning to eat or sleep until he was done.



Marron was lying elsewhere on Goten's shoulder as they sat on the roof of their house. Goten played a slow tune and sang a song about her hair, he said. But Marron was mentally elsewhere, all the time she was thinking about something else.

*Ask him. *

* What if he drops me? *

* Then he's not worthy of you, after all the things he said! Ask him! *

* I don't know ... *

*DO IT! *

"Goten?" She asked gently.

"Golden wheat in the sun ... yes, Marron?"

"I have to ask you something."

"Just ask, Lovely Locks."

Marron grinned[MS: smirked. Goku grin, Vegeta smirks. There is a big difference. Unfortunately the word does not exist in German].That