HOME | DD

Description
Chapter 12: Future

When Yamcha could see again, he found that the lavish surroundings of the Presidential Palace had melted away, replaced by the endless dark of the Pendulum Room. Even though it was quite clear that he was back to his own present time, he couldn’t help but look around frantically. Where was Ivan? Was he okay? Was it too much to hope that the previous Guardian, the grey alien known as Mal’kesh, had chosen that moment to take the tortured Namekian on as his student?

After his eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the chamber, Yamcha spotted Mr. Popo standing off to the side of the active area. Yamcha scrambled over to him, grabbing the genie desperately by the vest.

“No, you’ve gotta send me back! They’re gonna kill him!” he pleaded frantically, shaking the celestial groundskeeper lightly as though trying to shake some sense into him. Mr. Popo, though he looked a bit startled by the action, merely shook his head.

“I-I’m sorry, I cannot do that. Lord Mal’kesh made me swear to adhere to what I have already seen. You were only allowed to travel back to that time because history had already dictated that you do so. You aren’t permitted past the point that you were sent back here because you simply weren’t there. You cannot change the past, no matter how much you may wish to…”

Yamcha could do little more than stare into Mr. Popo’s unblinking gaze at that. Was this what he meant when he said that he’d been involved in this for longer than he realized? He knew then, didn’t he? He knew that Yamcha would fall in love with Piccolo. He’d known for centuries, in fact. More than that, he knew literally everything that had happened to Piccolo and Kami during those years he couldn’t remember. At this point, there could be no doubt that he, along with the previous Guardian, had been watching the stranded Namekian closely. If that was the case, then he held all the answers, didn’t he? The key to unlocking Piccolo’s entire past was right there in front of him.

“F-fine… If you won’t send me back, the least you could do is tell me… What happened to him after I left?”

Unfortunately, Mr. Popo seemed to have reached the limit of what he would – or could – say. He opted to reply with utter, deafening silence. Consumed with frustration at the lack of answers, Yamcha released the genie and sprinted out of the Pendulum Room. He weaved his way through Kami’s Palace until he made his way into the blinding sunlight of the open sky. He hadn’t the time to explain to Dende what was going on, a new urgency driving the former bandit to fly as fast as he could back to the Scherbakov mansion. He had to be sure Piccolo was okay. He had to be sure he was still alive.

_________________________

Yamcha made it back to the Northern District in record time, rocketing above towns and past aircraft with complete disregard for the risk of being noticed. He didn’t care what anyone thought upon seeing a man flying through the air. Dammit, he didn’t care! The only thing that mattered was Piccolo.

Finally, after what felt like eons, the familiar silhouette of the old rebuilt mansion came into view. He let out a small sigh of relief. Well, at least that was still there. That meant that the one who’d rebuilt it must still exist. Even so, he searched desperately for Piccolo’s ki. He was able to find it easily enough, but was somewhat confused to find that the Namekian warrior was not inside.

As he descended, he spotted a dark figure standing out in the snowy field. Yamcha touched down a few yards behind, suddenly unsure if he should approach just yet. Piccolo was just standing there, his hands in his pockets as he stared down at the ground. It didn’t take long for Yamcha to realize the significance of the spot. That had been where they’d buried his mother. The event was still fresh in his mind, having experienced it in what for him was just half a day ago. Yet, for Piccolo, that same event occurred around eight hundred and fifty years ago.

“Welcome back to the future, I suppose.”

Yamcha was a little startled when Piccolo addressed him out of nowhere like that. Then again, he knew by now that it was impossible to sneak up on him. Even if he couldn’t sense his ki, he could hear for endless miles. No, the real surprise was that he seemed to know exactly where he’d been all day. Yamcha let out a small sigh, taking it as an invitation and making his way over to Piccolo’s side.

He glanced down at the grave and was mildly surprised to find a small patch of snow cleared away, a stone plaque now embedded into the frozen ground. He wasn’t sure if that was there before or if Piccolo had only just remembered enough to come back and mark the grave. The plaque was inscribed in Russian, and though he couldn’t read it outside of the Pendulum Room, he was fairly certain he knew what it said.

“I… I’m sorry…” Yamcha mumbled out softly, never raising his eyes from the grave of the woman he’d helped to bury centuries ago. “I tried – we tried – but we just couldn’t make it in time to save her…”

“I know…” Piccolo replied somberly, never looking up himself. “Thank you.”

That last bit caught Yamcha off guard, and he couldn’t help but glance up at Piccolo, as though unsure he’d heard correctly. The stoic alien’s face was as unreadable as ever. He then averted his gaze down to the ground once more, unable to look him in the eye for long.

“For what? I failed… I couldn’t save you, I couldn’t save your mother…Who knows what ever happened to your sister…”

“You’re wrong,” Piccolo replied after a moment of thought. “You did save me. You saved me from myself. If it wasn’t for you, I’d have been dead a long time ago.”

Yamcha had to think for a moment to deduce what he meant, but soon he’d remembered. He must have been talking about when he’d stopped him from shooting himself in the head. He couldn’t help but think of all the things that would be different if he’d been just a fraction of a second slower in that moment. The dragon balls would never have existed on Earth, and likely none of them would have ever met. He wondered if Goku would have gotten strong enough to resist Raditz if he’d never met Bulma and left his mountain home. Would Krillin have been the only one of them to train under Master Roshi? Would the Red Ribbon Army have ever been destroyed? Would Yamcha himself still be a lonely, dirt-poor bandit living in the desert?

He couldn’t help but draw in a sharp gasp when he felt Piccolo gently grasp his hand out of nowhere, pulling him out of his silent musings.

“You’ve… you’ve seen a lot today. More than I’d ever show anyone else. You’ve seen me at my lowest, at my most desperate moments. Yet, even when things became difficult, your first instinct was to spring to my aide, your own safety be damned. I… I’ve never known such dedication in my life. I would understand completely if you were unwilling to involve yourself with me in the future, if you were unable to deal with such a broken individual such as I, but… I just want you to know that it is more than I deserve to have spent these past few months like this with you, and it would be a true honor to remain by your side from here on out…”

Yamcha felt his face heat up in an instant. Was… Was this Piccolo’s overly-elaborate way of proposing?! No… Perhaps he was overthinking it. Either way, though… he was certainly indicating that he wished their relationship to continue, and even to grow stronger. Yamcha’s lips curved instinctively into a smile, and he found himself threading his fingers together with Piccolo’s own.

“The honor is mine,” was all Yamcha could think to respond with. He could feel Piccolo’s surprise at such a response, even though he never had the courage to look up at him just yet. Then, after a moment, he felt the other man’s hand squeeze his own gently, fully embracing the contact. In that moment, he felt a flow of ki in his body which originated from their clasped hands. It was Piccolo’s familiar ki, but it felt different somehow. Not unfamiliar, just different. It took him a moment to realize that it was starting to feel a bit more like Ivan’s ki from in the past. Yet, at the same time, it was a bit more like the two were combining, feeding off one another, amplifying one another, growing stronger... Yamcha’s brow furrowed. Could it be that the previous Guardian hadn’t only sealed away his old memories, but some forgotten power as well?

“Hey…” Yamcha spoke up after a long moment of silence. “I’d understand if you don’t want to talk about it, but I just have to know… What happened to you after I left you back then? Your old master said I couldn’t interfere beyond that point, and he sent me back. I know you must have survived, because here you are, but… Please, tell me what you remember.”

Piccolo’s grip on his hand seemed to waver, a sense of hesitation coming over his energy. Soon enough, however, his second thoughts seemed to fade. He turned himself over to his newfound trust in this hapless human, squeezing his hand lovingly once more. Yamcha got the sense that what he was about to hear was privileged information; that Piccolo would never dare discuss such things with anyone but him.

“Stalin’s generals… They overwhelmed me. My weapon had jammed, and they were on me en masse. I remember feeling more than half a dozen bullets penetrating my body in that next moment. It wasn’t enough to kill me, and they’d thankfully missed my head, but… They managed to subdue me quite easily after that.

“I’m afraid what came next was…” Piccolo came to an abrupt stop after that. Yamcha could feel the hesitation in him; what’s more, the fear. He didn’t want to remember that, it seemed. The former bandit squeezed his hand back in reassurance.

“It’s okay. They’re gone now. They can’t hurt you anymore.”

That seemed to do the trick. Piccolo drew in a sharp breath, releasing it in a sigh. He could be brave and forge on, if only with Yamcha’s help.

“I next awoke on an operating table, in a surgical theatre with hundreds of eyes staring down at me… into me. They’d bolted my bones to the table to keep me from breaking free. My wrists, my ankles, my shoulders... I couldn’t move, not with what little energy I had left being dedicated to keeping me alive. I remember waking up with the sudden horrified realization that I’d been cut into, that I was split open… I looked down to find that my chest had been peeled away, layer by layer; that my ribcage lay open for the world to see what lay within.

“I was then forced to watch as they cut the heart from my chest, watching me with eager anticipation as I lay there, gasping desperately for air, trying to force my blood to circulate by sheer willower alone. I started to feel utterly numb as the darkness closed in, the only thing I could feel being pure panic. Then, just before consciousness left me, my heart regenerated. The darkness receded, my starved veins finally receiving the blood they screamed for.

“Yet, even as I lay there, crying out in agony, I could hear the doctors cheer victoriously. They had their answers… And I had confirmation of what I’d always feared, of what mother had always warned me of; they really were no different than the Nazis I’d fought against. The saddest part of it all was that it hadn’t been the first time I’d experienced such torture. That had been one of Mengele’s favorite punishments if ever I got too snarky with him. I can’t even count how many hearts I’ve had in my lifetime, I’ve had to regenerate so many…

“I think that’s why I remained with the other Namekians when they stayed at Capsule Corp. Even before I remembered everything, that instinctual distrust of anyone in a medical or scientific field persisted. I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t stay out of a sense of kinship for those of my own kind, but out of fear that Dr. Briefs or one of his employees would exploit one of them in the same way I had been exploited all those years ago…”

Yamcha found himself at a complete loss for words by the end of the story. He’d heard that the medical torture they’d inflicted upon people during that war had been truly horrific, but he hadn’t known the magnitude of it until just then. What’s more, it probably wasn’t even half of the full story. Just how much of this had Piccolo had to endure in his lifetime? Honestly, at this point it was no wonder he came to hate humans so much. Had it happened to him, Yamcha probably would have veered off into Great Demon King territory far sooner than the gentle giant that was Ivan.

“It’s okay,” Yamcha replied finally. “We don’t have to think about the past anymore if you don’t want to. From now on, why don’t we focus on the future instead? We’ll make new memories for you – memories you won’t want to forget, memories that make you happy. What do you say?”

There was a long moment of silence after that, at which point Yamcha briefly feared that he may have stepped over a line somehow. Piccolo had spent nearly a year painstakingly trying to recover these memories. Now that many of them turned out to be painful ones, was it disrespectful to imply that he should forget about them?

Finally, Piccolo let out a small chuckle, and he could feel him smiling serenely.

“Yes, I think I’d like that.”

Description
Chapter 12: Future

When Yamcha could see again, he found that the lavish surroundings of the Presidential Palace had melted away, replaced by the endless dark of the Pendulum Room. Even though it was quite clear that he was back to his own present time, he couldn’t help but look around frantically. Where was Ivan? Was he okay? Was it too much to hope that the previous Guardian, the grey alien known as Mal’kesh, had chosen that moment to take the tortured Namekian on as his student?

After his eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the chamber, Yamcha spotted Mr. Popo standing off to the side of the active area. Yamcha scrambled over to him, grabbing the genie desperately by the vest.

“No, you’ve gotta send me back! They’re gonna kill him!” he pleaded frantically, shaking the celestial groundskeeper lightly as though trying to shake some sense into him. Mr. Popo, though he looked a bit startled by the action, merely shook his head.

“I-I’m sorry, I cannot do that. Lord Mal’kesh made me swear to adhere to what I have already seen. You were only allowed to travel back to that time because history had already dictated that you do so. You aren’t permitted past the point that you were sent back here because you simply weren’t there. You cannot change the past, no matter how much you may wish to…”

Yamcha could do little more than stare into Mr. Popo’s unblinking gaze at that. Was this what he meant when he said that he’d been involved in this for longer than he realized? He knew then, didn’t he? He knew that Yamcha would fall in love with Piccolo. He’d known for centuries, in fact. More than that, he knew literally everything that had happened to Piccolo and Kami during those years he couldn’t remember. At this point, there could be no doubt that he, along with the previous Guardian, had been watching the stranded Namekian closely. If that was the case, then he held all the answers, didn’t he? The key to unlocking Piccolo’s entire past was right there in front of him.

“F-fine… If you won’t send me back, the least you could do is tell me… What happened to him after I left?”

Unfortunately, Mr. Popo seemed to have reached the limit of what he would – or could – say. He opted to reply with utter, deafening silence. Consumed with frustration at the lack of answers, Yamcha released the genie and sprinted out of the Pendulum Room. He weaved his way through Kami’s Palace until he made his way into the blinding sunlight of the open sky. He hadn’t the time to explain to Dende what was going on, a new urgency driving the former bandit to fly as fast as he could back to the Scherbakov mansion. He had to be sure Piccolo was okay. He had to be sure he was still alive.

_________________________

Yamcha made it back to the Northern District in record time, rocketing above towns and past aircraft with complete disregard for the risk of being noticed. He didn’t care what anyone thought upon seeing a man flying through the air. Dammit, he didn’t care! The only thing that mattered was Piccolo.

Finally, after what felt like eons, the familiar silhouette of the old rebuilt mansion came into view. He let out a small sigh of relief. Well, at least that was still there. That meant that the one who’d rebuilt it must still exist. Even so, he searched desperately for Piccolo’s ki. He was able to find it easily enough, but was somewhat confused to find that the Namekian warrior was not inside.

As he descended, he spotted a dark figure standing out in the snowy field. Yamcha touched down a few yards behind, suddenly unsure if he should approach just yet. Piccolo was just standing there, his hands in his pockets as he stared down at the ground. It didn’t take long for Yamcha to realize the significance of the spot. That had been where they’d buried his mother. The event was still fresh in his mind, having experienced it in what for him was just half a day ago. Yet, for Piccolo, that same event occurred around eight hundred and fifty years ago.

“Welcome back to the future, I suppose.”

Yamcha was a little startled when Piccolo addressed him out of nowhere like that. Then again, he knew by now that it was impossible to sneak up on him. Even if he couldn’t sense his ki, he could hear for endless miles. No, the real surprise was that he seemed to know exactly where he’d been all day. Yamcha let out a small sigh, taking it as an invitation and making his way over to Piccolo’s side.

He glanced down at the grave and was mildly surprised to find a small patch of snow cleared away, a stone plaque now embedded into the frozen ground. He wasn’t sure if that was there before or if Piccolo had only just remembered enough to come back and mark the grave. The plaque was inscribed in Russian, and though he couldn’t read it outside of the Pendulum Room, he was fairly certain he knew what it said.

“I… I’m sorry…” Yamcha mumbled out softly, never raising his eyes from the grave of the woman he’d helped to bury centuries ago. “I tried – we tried – but we just couldn’t make it in time to save her…”

“I know…” Piccolo replied somberly, never looking up himself. “Thank you.”

That last bit caught Yamcha off guard, and he couldn’t help but glance up at Piccolo, as though unsure he’d heard correctly. The stoic alien’s face was as unreadable as ever. He then averted his gaze down to the ground once more, unable to look him in the eye for long.

“For what? I failed… I couldn’t save you, I couldn’t save your mother…Who knows what ever happened to your sister…”

“You’re wrong,” Piccolo replied after a moment of thought. “You did save me. You saved me from myself. If it wasn’t for you, I’d have been dead a long time ago.”

Yamcha had to think for a moment to deduce what he meant, but soon he’d remembered. He must have been talking about when he’d stopped him from shooting himself in the head. He couldn’t help but think of all the things that would be different if he’d been just a fraction of a second slower in that moment. The dragon balls would never have existed on Earth, and likely none of them would have ever met. He wondered if Goku would have gotten strong enough to resist Raditz if he’d never met Bulma and left his mountain home. Would Krillin have been the only one of them to train under Master Roshi? Would the Red Ribbon Army have ever been destroyed? Would Yamcha himself still be a lonely, dirt-poor bandit living in the desert?

He couldn’t help but draw in a sharp gasp when he felt Piccolo gently grasp his hand out of nowhere, pulling him out of his silent musings.

“You’ve… you’ve seen a lot today. More than I’d ever show anyone else. You’ve seen me at my lowest, at my most desperate moments. Yet, even when things became difficult, your first instinct was to spring to my aide, your own safety be damned. I… I’ve never known such dedication in my life. I would understand completely if you were unwilling to involve yourself with me in the future, if you were unable to deal with such a broken individual such as I, but… I just want you to know that it is more than I deserve to have spent these past few months like this with you, and it would be a true honor to remain by your side from here on out…”

Yamcha felt his face heat up in an instant. Was… Was this Piccolo’s overly-elaborate way of proposing?! No… Perhaps he was overthinking it. Either way, though… he was certainly indicating that he wished their relationship to continue, and even to grow stronger. Yamcha’s lips curved instinctively into a smile, and he found himself threading his fingers together with Piccolo’s own.

“The honor is mine,” was all Yamcha could think to respond with. He could feel Piccolo’s surprise at such a response, even though he never had the courage to look up at him just yet. Then, after a moment, he felt the other man’s hand squeeze his own gently, fully embracing the contact. In that moment, he felt a flow of ki in his body which originated from their clasped hands. It was Piccolo’s familiar ki, but it felt different somehow. Not unfamiliar, just different. It took him a moment to realize that it was starting to feel a bit more like Ivan’s ki from in the past. Yet, at the same time, it was a bit more like the two were combining, feeding off one another, amplifying one another, growing stronger... Yamcha’s brow furrowed. Could it be that the previous Guardian hadn’t only sealed away his old memories, but some forgotten power as well?

“Hey…” Yamcha spoke up after a long moment of silence. “I’d understand if you don’t want to talk about it, but I just have to know… What happened to you after I left you back then? Your old master said I couldn’t interfere beyond that point, and he sent me back. I know you must have survived, because here you are, but… Please, tell me what you remember.”

Piccolo’s grip on his hand seemed to waver, a sense of hesitation coming over his energy. Soon enough, however, his second thoughts seemed to fade. He turned himself over to his newfound trust in this hapless human, squeezing his hand lovingly once more. Yamcha got the sense that what he was about to hear was privileged information; that Piccolo would never dare discuss such things with anyone but him.

“Stalin’s generals… They overwhelmed me. My weapon had jammed, and they were on me en masse. I remember feeling more than half a dozen bullets penetrating my body in that next moment. It wasn’t enough to kill me, and they’d thankfully missed my head, but… They managed to subdue me quite easily after that.

“I’m afraid what came next was…” Piccolo came to an abrupt stop after that. Yamcha could feel the hesitation in him; what’s more, the fear. He didn’t want to remember that, it seemed. The former bandit squeezed his hand back in reassurance.

“It’s okay. They’re gone now. They can’t hurt you anymore.”

That seemed to do the trick. Piccolo drew in a sharp breath, releasing it in a sigh. He could be brave and forge on, if only with Yamcha’s help.

“I next awoke on an operating table, in a surgical theatre with hundreds of eyes staring down at me… into me. They’d bolted my bones to the table to keep me from breaking free. My wrists, my ankles, my shoulders... I couldn’t move, not with what little energy I had left being dedicated to keeping me alive. I remember waking up with the sudden horrified realization that I’d been cut into, that I was split open… I looked down to find that my chest had been peeled away, layer by layer; that my ribcage lay open for the world to see what lay within.

“I was then forced to watch as they cut the heart from my chest, watching me with eager anticipation as I lay there, gasping desperately for air, trying to force my blood to circulate by sheer willower alone. I started to feel utterly numb as the darkness closed in, the only thing I could feel being pure panic. Then, just before consciousness left me, my heart regenerated. The darkness receded, my starved veins finally receiving the blood they screamed for.

“Yet, even as I lay there, crying out in agony, I could hear the doctors cheer victoriously. They had their answers… And I had confirmation of what I’d always feared, of what mother had always warned me of; they really were no different than the Nazis I’d fought against. The saddest part of it all was that it hadn’t been the first time I’d experienced such torture. That had been one of Mengele’s favorite punishments if ever I got too snarky with him. I can’t even count how many hearts I’ve had in my lifetime, I’ve had to regenerate so many…

“I think that’s why I remained with the other Namekians when they stayed at Capsule Corp. Even before I remembered everything, that instinctual distrust of anyone in a medical or scientific field persisted. I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t stay out of a sense of kinship for those of my own kind, but out of fear that Dr. Briefs or one of his employees would exploit one of them in the same way I had been exploited all those years ago…”

Yamcha found himself at a complete loss for words by the end of the story. He’d heard that the medical torture they’d inflicted upon people during that war had been truly horrific, but he hadn’t known the magnitude of it until just then. What’s more, it probably wasn’t even half of the full story. Just how much of this had Piccolo had to endure in his lifetime? Honestly, at this point it was no wonder he came to hate humans so much. Had it happened to him, Yamcha probably would have veered off into Great Demon King territory far sooner than the gentle giant that was Ivan.

“It’s okay,” Yamcha replied finally. “We don’t have to think about the past anymore if you don’t want to. From now on, why don’t we focus on the future instead? We’ll make new memories for you – memories you won’t want to forget, memories that make you happy. What do you say?”

There was a long moment of silence after that, at which point Yamcha briefly feared that he may have stepped over a line somehow. Piccolo had spent nearly a year painstakingly trying to recover these memories. Now that many of them turned out to be painful ones, was it disrespectful to imply that he should forget about them?

Finally, Piccolo let out a small chuckle, and he could feel him smiling serenely.

“Yes, I think I’d like that.”