An Amity Revived
Chapter Fourteen
The weather was overwhelming before. The heat was overwhelming before. Now that is was well after noon, one would expect that all the heat would be gone, or at least simmering away. Instead, the heat was blown up from a temperature that Panboukin had gotten used to to a temperature that was a little too devastating for him. His pores finally overflowed and started to slide down his skin, but luckily the wind of his flight and the wind of the planet helped to flick the water off of him. But the wind of the planet did more than that. It cut his skin. Fortunately, only little --perhaps, in some cases, none at all-- blood escaped.
The journey was no easier because of this. It only added more ingredients to his frustration. There were others, of course, such as his failed attempt on locating the female. Oh, Panboukin knew he could make up for it later, and he doubted that anyone else was just as successful. He would just go out for a second time in a row. After all, now he was too pumped up with energy to rest again.
Perhaps Totepo was the one who deserves a break. He was the one who asked no questions or argued whenever Toma wanted something to be done. He had been awake for the longest time of them all if the female found a place to sleep for a while. He already carried out one of the searches successfully, so now it was someone else's turn. Totepo will be able to take a break and sleep. Hopefully Toma wouldn't argue with that suggestion.
Would he argue? He had changed rapidly since the last time the crew was alive so much that he was almost unpredictable. Whenever someone else was angered he just backed up and made a joke about it or just ignored it. He never had lost his carefree spirit so easily. Whenever he had news he waited until he was asked, never until the people he wanted were around so he wouldn't have to repeat it, especially if he knew time was running out. Did he know this time?
The thing that irked Panboukin the most was the fact that the sub-leader was blaming others for mistakes that affected someone else instead of themselves. Toma used to only blame people for flaws and recklessness that affected the person who made the mistake. Maybe if Panboukin hadn't pointed out that they could've just gone back to Vegetasei first, that wouldn't have happen. But he did. Now Toma was putting that against him.
Toma blamed him for Celipa's disappearance.
Panboukin knew for sure that it wasn't his fault. The argument between Celipa and Toma was what caused the separation in the first place. He could say that it was the woman's fault for everything --she never argued, always gave in-- but it wasn't. Toma suggested the separation out of anger, which was something he had never done before. And now because of his rash decision, Celipa just might be...
No she was not! She was too strong to give up like that. She carried much more strength then any normal low-level soldier, and much more willpower than that of an elite. She would never let go of the threads without a fight. That was something that all four of the men valued in her and one of the reasons why Bardock let her stay in the crew in the first place.
What on this planet can hold her down or even take her life? Exhaustion from the heat was a lame excuse. The flying objects in the air were a reasonable explanation --for a weakling. And that was something she was not. He was easily avoiding them, but of course, he was keeping a close watch too. So what could it be?
He let out a small laugh. This wasn't something he was used to doing. The only one who ever showed this much concern for any of his comrades was the sub-leader himself. At least that was something he still held true to himself. Was that a good thing or bad?
For once, it may be a very good thing.
Panboukin wasn't exactly sure how long it has been, but he figured it had been long enough to be heading back to the landing site now. He didn't have an internal clock running through his brain, and he usually lost count of time if he wasn't concentrating on it. Besides, he could only focus his thoughts on one thing at a time. No more, no less. Of course the only thing he was concentrating on was what the sub-leader would hope he was concentrating on.
A wild guess is better then being safe, right? Besides, it may have been over three hours already. The sun was hidden behind the clouds, so he couldn't rely on his shadow. So he was heading back now. No later and no sooner.
Just in case he was a little early, he decided to enjoy the landscape. There was nothing wrong with a little leisure after some hard work. There was still a bitter taste to this. The land was dotted with debris of buildings. The air was sprinkled with rubble. All this damage that had been caused was the last thing they ever did before they died. He wondered if they really should have waited for Bardock to be healed before leaving Vegetasei. Things would have been different, wouldn't they?
His river of thoughts drifted away once he spotted a new obstacle for him to pass. It didn't seem like much; it was only a tornado. It was a swift and rowdy tornado at that, and if he chose the wrong direction the results could be fatal.
"These things are really becoming a nuisance," Panboukin muttered with much annoyance, taking a random direction from the tornado. He wasn't thinking clearly about this; if he was then he would study the direction of the tornado and make an educated guess. That wasn't his nature, though. He always just went with the flow.
A normal person would say that what happened next was to be expected. The sub-leader would say that he was just being careless again. Panboukin would say that he was thinking of something else. The swirling winds abruptly jerked towards him, the tinier fragments of buildings sharply hitting his skin. He angrily shifted his pupils towards the cyclone in response.
"Aw, shit," he muttered as he saw that it was only a few more seconds before he was eaten up by it.
Panboukin fired himself forward, not wanting to stray any further from the straight line he was going in. He knew that it was best that he went as the crow flies so that he would be back at the landing site quicker and so there was no chance that he could get lost. On a desolate planet like this, that was highly possible. The tornado was the only thing that was making it difficult. It was heading the same way he was, not the opposite direction like he assumed.
So there were more challenges. He should be happy about it, but instead he was very annoyed, especially when the cyclone managed to catch up with him.
It seemed as if it was following him, but wind had no mind of its own. For that, he took as a very good sign. That would mean that he would be able to change the wind's direction and not have to worry about it anymore. Sure, he could just ignore it, but there were so many boulders and rubble that he didn't want to risk it. He didn't want to risk any of the crew worrying about him; only the commander and the female were allowed to be sympathized for. Not him. Besides, that would give Toma a new reason to taunt him all the time. That was the last thing Panboukin wanted.
So again, he jetted in the air so he would only be roughly around ten feet away from the twister. Once he stopped he spun around in a semicircle, his fist carrying a bright light ready to be fired. He jerked his elbow back behind him and drifted another couple feet away from the tornado as it kept coming closer. The Saiya-jin's upper and lower teeth made contact, and he thrust his entire arm forward, releasing the enlarged beam.
Maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all. The best he did was getting rid of five or six boulders rotating around the cyclone and disintegrated many smaller pebbles. The portions of the beam that didn't hit anything at all just whizzed through the tornado making no changes to its specified route. At least now it seemed as if the wind was heading in a certain direction.
There was not time to praise the cyclone for that, though. Before the Saiya-jin could even mutter a curse at his ineffective attempt to change the tornado's trajectory, it stopped. Just like that. The boulders dropped to the ground roughly and the spiral shape of the wind tore in two and dispersed quickly. All was silent except for the passing breeze whistling past the broken buildings across the landscape.
Panboukin just floated there for a couple seconds, gaping at the sudden change in weather. He didn't know much about atmospheric changes or anything of the sort, but he did know that tornadoes weren't supposed to abruptly stop like that. Wasn't it supposed to slowly fade away or grow smaller and smaller before it disappeared? Either way, he knew he'd best get back to the landing site soon. Getting distracted by natural weather was not a good excuse for being even a little late.
Still, the evaporation of the cyclone was still very awkward. That was the new thought on his mind. Why did it do that? Why did the tornado stop? It had no mind of its own. It really couldn't be on a specified course. It was just a formation of wind! There was nothing controlling it, especially with the molding of the Meatsei-jins' technology --if they had any.
Luckily for him and his new river of thoughts, he ran into no more swirling winds or rough obstacles for the rest of the journey.
The gods took care of him easily. The traitor was now back in his rightful position in Hell and was put into a more heavily guarded portion of the afterlife. So the Resurrector knew that he wouldn't be coming back Up for a long time. Now he may concentrate on a certain quartet and make sure they weren't getting themselves killed.
Tough luck. It seemed that after their argument they had a hard time reuniting with one another, and one of them was on the near verge of death. It was not anybody's fault down there. Whatever it was that attacked her wouldn't have done much damage if he had been more careful when reviving her neurological system, so he could rightfully say it was his fault. He was going to make sure that she won't die on him again, though. It was easy to do --after all, it wasn't breaking any rules-- but it was also just as hard as resurrecting a person.
There may be a lot of rules, but none of them ever said anything about giving living people more stamina to hold themselves up. It was the most he could do without straining himself into fatigue mode. It wasn't easy, but at least it was much less complicated than spending most of one's time to keep a person alive and keeping an eye out for other three Saiya-jins at the same time.
He slowly and carefully submitted a little bit of his strength towards the female. A little bit surely wasn't enough, but it should keep her breathing until the four of them reached a planet that had excellent medical facilities.
How long would that take? Hopefully not very.