She looked around, and couldn't help but be surprised at the tranquillity of this place. Animals still peeked cautiously at her from behind the trees, and birds chirped merrily above her. The whole forest looked untouched by the destructive hand of Hyakuhei.
Ippin came to a fork in the dusty little path she was walking in. She peered at the map, tracing along a line with a finger while frowning thoughtfully. The fork wasn't drawn in the map.
"Aha!" she exclaimed, stabbing the map triumphantly. The path she was supposed to be on curved around a large object. To the left, she could just make out the side of a boulder. Humming merrily to herself, Ippin walked down the path. She stopped at the boulder and examined it a moment.
It was very wide and tall, taller than Ippin's full five-foot-ten-inches height. The surface might have once been smooth, but was now covered wit tiny cracks that radiated out of a large hole near the center of the left side. She traced a particularly large crack with her finger, her mind wandering.
Sighing softly, Ippin turned back to the map. Once past the boulder, which was simply a scribbled mass on the map, she was to turn left...
She jogged down the path, glad that she was almost there. She could see a clearing up ahead, and cheerfully walked towards it. The easy part was over, now all she had to do was try to figure out exactly how this guy was supposed to defeat the world. Ippin stopped abruptly. She hadn't thought of it before, but there was no way that the Saiya-jin could defeat Hyakuhei, he wasn't even close to matching Hyakuhei's power.
"Damn!" she spat, cursing herself for not thinking ahead. Glaring at house in front of her, Ippin trod up to it and knocked on the door. A woman about her age opened the door, and Ippin smiled.
The woman had jet black hair and eyes, and a slightly annoyed expression on her face. Nevertheless, Ippin could sense a strong aura of courage from her. Her eyes seemed to glow with resolute hope, as though she knew that everything was going to turn out perfectly fine, come hell or high water. Maybe this woman knew something she didn't...Well, maybe not knew, but something similar.
"Yes?" the woman asked, the same slight annoyance in her face showing in her voice. Ippin noticed this and smiled, embarassed.
"Well, I'm looking for this man. A woman at Capsule Corps. said he came here...and..."
Ippin noticed a small girl peeking out from behind the woman. The girl smiled at Ippin, oblivious innocence shining in her welcoming smile.
"You want to see Otusan?"
It was more a statement than a question. Ippin wasn't sure if the man she had healed earlier was this girl's father, so she shrugged slightly and said nothing. The woman answered for her.
"Yes, I think she is. Go get him, okay?"
Cheerfully, the little girl skipped back in the house to get Vegeta. Chi Chi studied the woman on her doorstep.
The woman was tall, with light brown hair pulled up in an odd hairdo, with wisps sticking up from behind, which reminded Chi Chi of a peacock's tail. The woman had light green eyes and, oddly, a star in the middle of her forehead, just above her slim eyebrows. She was wearing a kimono in layered shades of blue, and had silver hoop bracelets almost up to her elbows. Not really someone she could imagine looking for Vegeta, Chi Chi thought. This woman looked more like she belonged in a dark tent, surrounded by smoky incense with tarot cards in her hand.
Chi Chi smiled politely and searched her mind for something to say, when Bra's bright voice chimed up, " I found Otusan!"
Vegeta glared at the woman in the doorway. He was in no mood to see weird women asking him to 'save the world.' Frowning, he asked in a fed up voice, " What do you want?"
Ippin blinked. That had to be the most moronic thing she'd ever heard! The human population was being wiped out by a strange fog Hyakuhei had released, and this man wanted to know what she wanted?
"Well, your help would be appreciated," she said dryly. "I really don't think the people on Earth would mind living a bit longer."
"What exactly do you want me to do? I'm not strong enough to defeat Hyakuhei yet, though I have enjoyed an increase in strength thanks to my last battle. But, I can't possibly train to get stronger if I have strange females bothering me all the time, now can I?" Vegeta sneered, crossing his arms and stepping toward Ippin.
Ippin gazed back at Vegeta, her pale eyes narrowing. "Well, I'd thought maybe I could help in some way..." she began snippily.
"You? Ha! You're just a pathetic human."
"If you two are going to stand there and argue, can you at least go *outside* and argue?" Chi Chi interrupted, her face cross.
Vegeta hmphed in reply, but sauntered outside. Chi Chi slammed the door shut behind him, ranting to herself. Ippin stared at him with icy eyes.
"I am not an average human, " she began, gesturing with one arm. The delicate silver bracelets tinkled and swayed.
"Oh? Is that so?"
"Yes, it is so!" she snapped, then continued. "I am a sort of...psychic. I have powers."
Vegeta let out a short laugh. "Let me guess. You read palms and see the future in the stars, right?"
Ippin closed her eyes and began counting silently to herself. After a moment she reopened them and said calmly, "I can sense the future, if it's to be good or bad. And I can use spells, charms, familiars, things like that."
"And how is that going to help me?"
She sighed wearily. "I can tell you right now, your future isn't especially bright. Neither is the planet's, or even the galaxy's. But, maybe it can be changed. Maybe if you do something, Hyakuhei won't gain control over the galaxy."
Vegeta looked at her, his face unreadable. Ippin looked surprised. She hadn't known about the galaxy being taken over...
"So, what do you want me to do?"
"I don't know!" she replied angrily. "Train an army, build a laser, I don't know! Just do...something! You can't do anything alone, and you can't rely only on your strength."
"I don't think building a laser would be at all effective, and an army? Even if I was actually going to do that, where would I get decent soldiers for it?" Vegeta asked, his voice sharp with annoyance.
"Well, there was about six billion people on this planet...surely you can find a few promising people among those still alive," Ippin snapped back at him.
Vegeta laughed bitterly. "Humans? You think humans can help beat Hyakuhei?"
Ippin cocked her head to the side and frowned. "Yes, I do. Why wouldn't they?"
"Humans don't have the capability to be even as strong as I am now. How can they be stronger?"
Ippin sneered at Vegeta. "Don't you listen? If your strength isn't enough, how is anyone else's? Bu..."
"What are you talking about? First you're saying I can't defeat him myself, but it's possible to kill him, and now you're saying no one can! Make up your mind, woman!"
Bra stood outside the door, watching her father and the woman argue. An unexpected feeling of dread washed over her, and the blue-haired girl turned and walked into Chi Chi's house.
------
"Listen up, everybody! I have got an idea!"
The people in the room turned and looked with dull eyes at the small, pudgy woman standing on a work table. Bulma sat up from the floor and shouted, "What is it?"
"Shaddup! I'm trying to work here!" screamed the man next to her. Bulma whirled around, accidentally ramming her knee into Gohan's head.
"Sorry, Gohan," she whispered, then glared up at the man. "How dare you yell at me like that! Maybe you want to spend the rest of your life working in here for evil, but I don't! For all you know, we might be able to help someone out there and Hyakuhei will be killed! So, why don't you just shut your whiny little evil-butt-kissing mouth and let the lady talk!" she screamed back at the man, her eyes luminous with rage. She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up into the blank dull eyes of her son.
"Trunks?"
His hand tightened on her shoulder, squeezing it painfully. Bulma's eyes widened.
"Trunks..." she began.
Closing his eyes, Trunks flung out his arm, sending his mother across the room. She slammed into a misty wall, screaming in pain as she slid down to the floor.
"Shut up," he said, staring at his mother. She whimpered and crawled away from the wall. The plump woman on the table jumped down and helped Bulma up, then strode over to Trunks and slapped him. He flinched, though not out of pain, then gazed at the woman with confused eyes.
"Young man, you sure have some nerve! Throwing your own mother around like that!" she exclaimed.
Trunks blinked. "I..." he began, but his mind was too foggy for him to think of anything to say.
"Tr...Trunks?"
He ran over to his mother and knelt down. "Yes?"
Bulma sat up and glared at her son through half-closed eyes. She opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, but instead turned her head to the side and looked at the floor, her eyes filling with tears. Trunks reached out and turned his mother's blistered face to him.
"I'm sorry. I don't know why I did that, but...but I'm sorry."
Bulma said nothing, but stood up and gave her son an awkward half-hug. She turned to the woman and said softly, "Let's hear your idea."
The woman stepped back up on the table, and shouted for attention. Bulma trodded over to Gohan's still body and stroked his hair, praying he would be all right. 'Chi Chi would kill me if something happened to him,' she thought vaguely, then turned to listen to the woman.