[ Contents | Table of Contents | Prologue | 1. The Student ]
Colonel Jerome Sebastian Dark of the Red Ribbon Army had very little to do but brood. He would have called it planning if anyone had asked him, but no one did. Colonel Dark had very little to do because there was very little to do when recovering from near-fatal injuries, except endure.
He watched the people around him, chatted with them in a friendly fashion, and asked them all manner of questions about their jobs and families and concerns, so much so that the nurses and medical technicians thought him a very friendly fellow, and wasn't it terrible how General Blue had treated him? In this way, he learned who might be useful to him someday, and how they might best be recruited when the time came. And he brooded.
He had been so close to the power that was rightfully his! If only Blue hadn't been so jealous, and Leader Red hadn't been so suspicious... just like his father. Dark had grown up under his elder brother's shadow, constantly being reminded that Basil would inherit the wealth, the title, and the respect due the Lord of Northmark. Yes, Basil--foolish, spendthrift, careless Basil! By the merest accident of birth, the idiot would inherit instead of one worthy of the family name and fortune.
It was unfortunate that Basil was lucky enough to survive the car wreck; doubly unfortunate that Lord Northmark suspected his brilliant younger son. There was no evidence--Jerome was too smart for that--but the old man had disinherited him and driven him from the family lands on suspicion alone. Apparently, intelligence and decisiveness were heritable traits, for his father possessed them as well.
Jerome would never be Lord Northmark, but someday, he vowed to himself, he would have the power to award himself a much higher title. Yes... Damn that bastard Blue! Because of him, Jerome was in a hospital bed and out of Leader Red's favor, ten years of working his way up through the ranks gone to waste; only his friendship with Dr. Gero had saved him from summary execution.
The noises outside slowly forced their way to the forefront of his attention. What was going on out there? It sounded like a war was in progress! Jerome's unease rose as Dr. Gero and his best technician, Mathieu Soliere, both came to his bed; Soliere started unhooking monitors and equipment.
"What is--"
"No time for that," snarled Dr. Gero. "I'm moving you to my private laboratory; the situation here is untenable. That fool Black denies the inevitable; I know better."
Jerome struggled to raise himself to a sitting position. "We are being attacked? Who would dare--"
"Lay back down; you're in no condition to fight!" Gero snapped as Colonel Dark tried to pull himself to a sitting position. "I still have work to do on you...." He muttered something under his breath that Jerome couldn't quite catch. It sounded like "...one small boy."
* * * *
In the distance, fire and explosions lit the night, while the staccato rattle of gunfire echoed intermittently over the waves. Old Ryou ignored the noise; the object of his concern drifted nearby. A small sampan bumped against his boat. The weatherbeaten fisherman shaded his eyes from the conflagration on the distant island and peered into the tiny craft. It was empty--no, there was something there.
Ryou cautiously raised his lantern and unshaded it, letting the light spill over the sampan. A bundle of bloody rags huddled on the bottom of the small boat.
"A child!" The old fisherman quickly tied the drifting sampan to his small fishing boat, and leaned over the gunwale to pull the small bloody form aboard. How had the boy survived? the old fisherman wondered as he lifted the terribly wounded child in his arms. The boy couldn't have been more than eight or nine, and the bullet wounds piercing his dying body would have killed a grown man in minutes. Who could have done this to a child, and why?
The old man did what he could to bandage the boy's wounds and wrapped him in a blanket. "Kuan Yin, merciful goddess, help this child," he prayed as he worked, for the fisherman was a pious man--and obedient to the presence that had sent him out onto the sea at night, searching for he knew not what, until he found the drifting boat.
The boy's dark eyes blinked open, and he stared quizzically at Old Ryou. "Ayomara?" he whispered. "Is she safe?"
"I.. don't know," the old man answered truthfully, his heart wrung with pity for the rapidly fading boy. Oh, if only he had some comforting word for the poor child!
The boy seemed to gather strength from somewhere, and whispered raggedly, "She says to take me to the temple; they will take care of me."
"She?" The fisherman started to question--then a sweet and loving presence enfolded them both; the boy sighed, and closed his eyes, breathing more easily.
"Thank you, merciful goddess! I shall remember you at the festival, and praise your name!" The old fisherman carefully rested the injured child's head and shoulders on his lap, and began the long row home.
The boy's eyes opened again. "She says she's only a servant, but they all know you are a good man." The boy smiled, briefly. "She says to tell you that..." he paused, as if listening, "that your nets shall always be full and your children and grandchildren shall honor you." He frowned, then. "She says I have to sleep now, until the monks can heal me." He sighed again, and closed his eyes.
* * * *
"I couldn't do anything," Yamucha told Puar for the forty-ninth time--or was it the fiftieth? Puar decided that it didn't really matter; she floated down from Yamucha's shoulder and curled up in his lap. "I was useless; I couldn't even keep the miniature Cells from nearly killing me. I didn't move when Goku grabbed Cell, even though I knew what was going to happen, and I couldn't even help Gohan--it took Vegeta to do that!"
"Oh Yamucha!" Puar hugged him and snuggled against him, purring; out of habit, Yamucha found himself petting the plump blue and gray cat. "You did the best you could!"
"No, I didn't," Yamucha said sadly. "I was afraid, Puar; I've been afraid ever since Frieza returned. I'm afraid of dying uselessly after living a pretty much useless life." He shook his untrimmed hair back from his face. "I let the fear hold me back... if I had been able to fight the miniatures, if I had been able to do or say something when Goku grabbed Cell... maybe it would have made a difference; maybe the whole burden wouldn't have been on Gohan. Now Goku's dead..."
Puar looked up at her human companion with wide, distressed eyes. She couldn't bear to see him hurting again, and she regretted not being wise enough to know what to say and do. Puar floated up to his shoulders and hugged Yamucha again, rubbing her furry cheek against his.
"Yamucha... it hasn't been useless! Think of everything you and Goku did, all the adventures we had, all the villains we stopped!"
Her words fell on deaf ears; Yamucha still brooded about the fight with Cell. "My strength meant nothing to that monster! Gohan was losing even with all my power and Tien's and Piccolo's. It took Vegeta to make the difference!" Yamucha gently stroked the sweet grey and blue cat. "Face it, Puar--I'm no help to anyone anymore."
Puar hugged him; a single tear ran from her blue eyes and rolled over the creamy white fur of her face. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.
* * * *
CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 1. The Student
[ Contents | Table of Contents | Prologue | 1. The Student ]
Disclaimer: See Credits.
Copyright 2001 by Dragoness Eclectic
Last Updated: Mar 8, 2009