Marron leaned back against the Capsule Car and admired the view up above her. The clouds were holding still in the sky --- there wasn’t a breath of wind to move them forward. There were only a few of them, but the ones that remained in the air were huge and fluffy, like giant cotton balls. And the sun, though extremely hot and bright, held just enough wonder and beauty to make her smile. It was almost like a painting, but a painting that was too perfect. She longed to swipe her hands across the clouds, or to blow them onward, to create some kind of movement. When the world stood still like this, it made her feel as though everything had ended and she was still left with nothing. She hadn’t accomplished enough yet in her life to have the world come to a standstill. As young as she was, she still realized that there was much more to life than what was presented at that very moment. She wanted to grow and live; she wanted to be the sky that was forever moving and changing.

It was nice to be out in the sun with Goten beside her. She was a bit self-conscience of course, since she was sweating from the heat and most likely flushed, but it was still nice. He was being quiet as well, as if he had realized that this moment would be better served in silence. Both of them were leaning up against the hot black Capsule Car, and Marron was certain that she’d never seen him look so handsome. With his rippling muscles standing out under a tight tee shirt and his strong arms folded behind his shaggy head of hair, he could have been a model. She knew that it was just a crush --- she was only a young girl, but it was still nice to have fantasies. Being alone with him like this was something that she had strived for since she had been just a child. And now that she was here with him, even though it was under strange circumstances, it felt as though she were living in a dream.

A movement from the forest to the left caught her attention and she turned her head to see Koronu and Piccolo emerge from the trees, flying. Behind them was Gohan --- and she nearly gasped when she saw him. He was dripping wet with some kind of a steaming sludge, and there were broken twigs and rotting leaves stuck all over him. The expression on his face was deadly --- a look that she rarely ever saw on Gohan. It appeared as though they had found the dragonball, though. Gohan was carrying a muddy lump under his arm that Marron guessed was probably the dragonball. Marron could only imagine what had happened in the forest; it must have been something awful if Gohan was looking this bad. She watched Gohan warily as a drop of sludge fell off of his leg with a sickening plop. The smell reached her before he did, and it was so strong that she had to hold a hand over her nose.

Goten stared at his brother with a rare disgusted expression on his face, waving a hand over his nose. “Gohan, what happened to you?!”

Gohan glared. “Don’t ask.”

“Gohan just loved the swamp so much that he decided to take a swim!” Koronu exclaimed in a delighted, highly amused voice. Then she shook her head as though something tragic had happened, but couldn’t keep the smirk from creeping up into her expression. “After that, he didn’t really appreciate the beauty of it so much. But on the positive side, he managed to grab onto the dragonball before he was eaten by the swarm of insects that attacked him for wading through their nests and disturbing the rancid water that lay beneath it. By the way, Gohan….You can just go ahead and hang onto that dragonball until the end of this little adventure.”

“Thanks.” He replied dryly, clutching the dragonball tighter.

“Don’t worry; we managed to keep the dragon radar clean.” Koronu comforted Marron in a jolly tone, clapping a cool hand down on her shoulder. She reached into her pocket and retrieved the dragon radar, which she handed over to her with a flourish, still looking as though she were about to burst out laughing. “And before he dived into the bog, Gohan found the location of the next two balls. According to him, they’re very close to each other.”

Goten raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Well that should make it easy.”

Marron looked down at the dragon radar and found the two blinking red lights that represented the closest dragonballs. She turned slightly to get her directional bearings and then smiled --- Koronu was right. There were two dragonballs right next to each other and they weren’t too far away. “It looks like we’ll have to double back and go south. They’re much farther away than this one was. But Gohan is right --- they’re very close to each other. I’d say they’re probably in the exact same place. Do you think someone else is collecting them and keeping them? I thought it was really unusual for two dragonballs to land in the same place. Doesn’t the dragon completely scatter them when the wishes are made?”

“It’s possible.” Gohan explained intelligently. Marron had to stifle a giggle --- he was trying to look so professional and smart, but it was a very difficult task when he was completely covered in swamp sludge. Even his glasses were dirty and there was a twig sticking out behind his right ear. “But it isn’t really easy to collect dragonballs without the dragon radar, and it isn’t as if Capsule Corporation produces these things and sells them at local retailers. It’s an original. It would be nearly impossible to find the dragonballs on your own, using nothing but your intuition. I highly doubt that there is anyone else out there collecting the dragonballs. Most likely, it’s just a phenomenal coincidence. When the dragonballs were dispersed, these two somehow ended up in a two very close locations.”

“Coincidence or not, we had better get started.” Piccolo reminded everyone sternly. He shot off into the air again and looked down at everyone, as if urging them to hurry up. “We don’t have any time to waste.”

Juuhachi-gou wasn’t sure what was going on at the moment --- the evil being that had taken her body was unconscious. But she could hear things, just wisps of conversation and other sounds from the outside world. There was the sound of metal scraping against metal and the clatter of many objects being moved together. There was the humming sound of a light above her head and the swinging of a door with creaky hinges. But what interested her the most were the voices that she heard while she was here. The voices of people that she knew, and people that she didn’t know. She recognized Kuririn’s voice first --- she would have been able to recognize her husband’s sweet voice anywhere. But she hadn’t heard his voice in quite awhile now. She guessed that he was gone, or perhaps so frightened that he wasn’t allowing himself to talk. She recognized Mirai Bulma’s voice --- she had been hearing that one quite a bit lately. And there were also the deep, snapping undertones of Vejiita’s voice, which was more of a rolling growl. The two voices that she didn’t recognize confused her. She heard the name “Dr. Cho” mentioned frequently, and she supposed he was the doctor that was going to be operating on her.

The thought of an operation scared her. It made her feel as though she were years younger again, lying alone and scared on a stranger’s examination table. She couldn’t remember anything before Dr. Gero, but snatches of her memories while she was with Dr. Gero were coming back more and more regularly now. Juuhachi-gou thought that it might be because of the surgery, because she was going through nearly the same thing that she was back then. But although the two events were very similar, she felt safer here. She felt protected here instead of cold and lonely. Mirai Bulma’s voice helped her a lot. It was light, but strong, and although she couldn’t see the woman’s face, she knew that there would be a friendly smile there. She knew that this woman would do her best to keep her safe. There wasn’t any evil in the future woman’s heart and this surgery was meant to do good --- not to destroy the world. Mirai Bulma’s only goal was to help and to heal. Not like Dr. Gero. He had only wanted to conquer and crush everything that had ever stood in his way.

She could scarcely see. She couldn’t move. And the fear was so thick in her throat that she couldn’t even bring herself to speak. She had seen what had happened to her brother. She had seen the jagged, twisting lines of stitches and the way he coughed up blood whenever he moved. He had gone in first --- he had been the first one that the doctor had laid his hands on. It had terrified her to see him like that; her brother had always been so strong and so healthy. He always had a slight build, but he was wiry and full of energy. Underneath the baggy tee shirts that he always wore were actual muscles, thin and stretched, but muscles. She had always considered him to be her hero. And when the doctor threw him on the ground of their cell in a bloody, screaming mess, it had chilled her to her very core. She had spent the next few hours just grabbing onto his limp body and silently crying, wishing that all of this could be undone. Wishing that they would just die instead of having to endure this sadistic torture.

When the doctor had told her that it was her turn, she had been so scared that she couldn’t even move. It seemed as though her body had fixed itself upon the floor of her cell and that her arms and legs had grown tremendously heavy. He had grabbed her up anyway, roughly taking her by the arm and dragging her out of the cell. When she saw the examination table and the gleaming tools that sat beside it, her heart began to pound so hard that she thought it might explode. And then he had made her lay down on the table, and he had wrapped the thick straps over her, pinning her down and rendering her completely helpless. Then the bright, round light above her head had come on and everything else disappeared from view. The light was so intense that it was like looking up at the sun, and when she closed her eyes she could see bits of color floating around in the void of darkness. She could make out the shadow of Dr. Gero above her, but his features were nearly invisible. He was just a dark shadow blocking the light of her sun, and the evil that poured out of him was nearly tangible.

“You’re a young thing, aren’t you?” He asked her conversationally. “You’ve probably never even been to the hospital, have you? You’ve never had your tonsils out and you probably still have your appendix, don’t you? You probably think that surgery is only for people that are sick. Well, it isn’t. Because you’re perfectly healthy and I’m still going to cut you open.”

The doctor said the last sentence in a harsh, cruel voice that made her feel as though she wanted to cry. A small sound escaped from her throat, spurred on by a fear so real and so deep that she thought she might die from it. She could taste it in her mouth already --- the mix of bile and blood that arose from true fear and the certainty of death to come. She could barely see him as she squinted up into the bright lights, but for some reason she could see his mouth perfectly. She watched as his mustache moved, his lips curling up into a malicious smile.

“Oh, was that a whimper?” He asked her condescendingly, then peeled his lips back into a snarl. “You’re not so brave and tough anymore without your sniveling little brother around to protect you, eh? It would be better if you just complied without struggling at all. This is going to happen whether you like it or not. It is a necessary step in clearing the world of all stupidity. We’ve talked about that before, haven’t we? You know how I feel about the inhabitants of this world --- their ignorance, their lack of common sense, their inexplicable rudeness and vulgarity. It is important to be rid of such things --- imperative to cleanse the world of this filth. You should feel lucky to be part of something so special.”

She said nothing. Inside, she knew that she wasn’t lucky at all. It was the opposite actually --- the exact opposite. She didn’t feel special or chosen. She just felt miserable and sick. And she knew that it would only get worse. This madman, this supposed scientist wanted to exterminate everyone else on the planet. And this madman wanted to use her as his weapon. She knew this because he had told her. Many times. There were things that she and her brother did not know, however. She didn’t know how the doctor intended to do this or what was going to happen to her. All she knew was that she had been selected to be this man’s awful experiment. And that didn’t make her feel lucky at all. It just made her feel like killing herself. If he was planning on destroying the world with her, then she would simply destroy herself first, before he could put any of his evil plans into action. Unfortunately, she was too tired and too weak to kill herself. The idea of pain scared her, and she was too weak to pick up a scalpel and put an end to her own life.

“Not in the mood to chat, eh?” The doctor asked her. When she didn’t answer him, he simply picked up his tray of tools and slammed it down on the table next to him, picking up the sharpest knife and holding it up for her to see. He was angry that she had ignored him, angry that she didn’t think his plan was so special or reasonable. “Fine, then we’ll just begin. And since you’re not in the mood to talk, I suppose I’m not in the mood to give you painkillers either.”

Panic hit her hard and she blinked a few times, trying to gather herself. She didn’t want to be operated on while she could still feel everything; the pain would be unbearable. She knew that the doctor often did that with her brother, and it showed. He was already much weaker and in much more pain than she was. It would be a better idea just to humor the doctor right now and let him think that he was in control. After all, the doctor was in control. What could she do, strapped to a table with no one around to hear her screams? There was nothing that she could do to change what was happening to her; she just had to make it as painless and quick as possible. “What do you want me to say?”

He held back the knife for a moment, but still looked quite angry with her. His hands were shaking as he set the tool back down and turned to her, a sickening smile on his face. “I want you to thank me. I want you to thank me for making you a part of this. After all, I could have chosen anyone, but I chose you.”

“Thank you, Dr. Gero.” She told him, and she couldn’t help but let the sarcasm creep into her voice.

“I think I detected a note of sarcasm. Sarcasm doesn’t really go over well with me, dear. Next time you should speak with a little more respect, or you’ll end up with a broken nose and a black eye like your brother’s. And we wouldn’t want that to happen to such a pretty face.” The doctor threatened, then he smiled again --- that creepy, sadistic smile that was so often on his face. “You should thank me for that as well. When I am finished with you, you will be completely flawless. You will never age again. This creamy, smooth skin of yours will remain like this for all eternity. No wrinkles, no aging. You’ll be eighteen years old forever. I will do the same with your brother, though I really feel that he doesn’t deserve it. He’s an insolent brat. I’ve just about given up on him. But you….You’re not so bad. You might be pleasant to be around if you didn’t keep glaring up at me like that. And on that note, I order you to stop glaring at me.”

She couldn’t make her eyes stop glaring. She couldn’t stop the hatred that was pouring out of her. It was so thick that it nearly chocked her and she had to take a few deep breaths in order to gain control of her gag reflexes once again. She didn’t want to disobey him though --- if she disobeyed, it would mean the ultimate punishment for her and she didn’t want that. She was trying to survive. She tried to close her eyes and will away the hatred that was in them, but it was impossible to stop it. So, instead of focusing that glare upon the doctor, she fixed her gaze upon the side wall. She wouldn’t allow herself to look at him anymore. Looking at him only made her insides burn up like fire with anger.

“Good girl.” He told her condescendingly, patting her head as if she were a dog. Then he reached down and grabbed her arm, which had been strapped down to the table under the thick leather strap. With his other hand, he produced a long needle with the drugs that she knew would knock her out until he was finished with her. He aimed the needle at her arm and then flashed her another creepy smile. “Try not to fidget. It will only hurt worse if you struggle.”