Once Upon A Time In The City Of South City
A BatB/DragonBallZ Crossover
by
Lacerta Maxima

Chapter Four

"Talking To Him For Probably The First Time"

Piccolo woke up in pain. Pain wracked him all over his seven-foot-tall, athletic, green-and-salmon-with-red-trim, Namek-jin body; from his bald, green, pointy-eared, fangy-mouthed, antennae-equipped head, all the way down his tri-colored reptilian body to his green feet. He remembered some shards and fragments of the night before: the attacks on him and his friend Goku by both unknown assailants and known enemies whom he and Goku had both killed, and some were even killed quite long ago, such as Freeza/Furiza! ‘Who wished these miserable douchebags back to life?’ Piccolo thought to himself, “And, could there be some sort of Dragon or genie that can wish people back to life who had been dead for decades? That’s not all: I wonder who were the other guys, such as the person who invented that weapon called a “Ki-Drainer”?’ Piccolo silently mused. ‘Well, at least whoever scraped us off the ground in Central Park, obviously did a reasonable job at first aid….Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh’ Picc’s thought was ended in a paroxysm of pain, an he decided right there not to move again, at least after resting for a while, which was all he could do at the moment.

Also, there was the constant racket-hundreds of background noises, not very loud by human standards, but to a Namek-jin in severe pain the noise was aggravating! Most of the background sounds were either some sort of tapping on metal pipes. ‘Just how many leaky pipes do these people have, anyway? Or are they prison inmates trying to communicate to each other behind their captors’ backs? Do these people, who have us tied-up in bandages, work for those idiots who used horrible new weapons on me and Goku? Oh, Kami, that’s all that we need!’ Picco also noticed the other species of noise: The rumbling of some sort of train-a subway, perhaps? ‘Either we’re not held captive in a prison,’ Piccolo thought, ‘or maybe the prison holding us is so horribly large, like it were owned by some powerful dictator. I don’t know which. How did they transport us here? How long were we unconscious?’ Picc’s mind was active, questioning, and making demands that his weakened body cannot fulfill. It was tempting to fall asleep again, until…

Piccolo’s large pointy green ears overheard soft footfalls enter the room: pad, pad, pad, even stride, suggesting a graceful gait; pad, pad, pad, like a lion described in some of C.S. Lewis’ fictional works as Gohan had once described when he was preparing a book report as a middle-school assignment. The padding went over to the bed Picc was lain upon, and the gentle growl/purr spoke to him softly: “Our people have made some soup. You have been without food and beverage for more than eight hours. I can imagine that you are both hungry.”

“Yes, please…” Was all Piccolo could say, feeling every laceration the enemies’ knives had dealt him, and the throbbing that comes partly from the cuts, and partly from the weakness dealt him by the Ki-Drainer. The weakness was so humiliating to Picc. The Namek started thinking, ‘I’d better trace the person who invented that damned thing and tear him a new one….’

Then Piccolo felt a spoon filled with something very warm touch his lips, requesting entry. The green warrior was already thirsty enough to say “yes” to any beverage, even something as weird as soup; so he humbly swallowed it. It surprised him, tasted homemade, like Chi-Chi would sometimes fed Goku and Gohan and himself when they were training to fight and defeat Cell/Seru. “Good soup,” he said struggling against both the pain and (the sluggishness caused by) the pain-fighting drugs, and the bandages that tied him up all over, as either some sort of physical restraint, or as a nice warm cocoon, with an opening for Piccolo's lower nose and mouth, which the stranger was busily and happily feeding with an obviously home-made soup.

“I’m glad you like it; I’ll tell the man who made it. His ancestor William would be so proud of him.” The growl/purr gently whispered.

Piccolo overheard something move from another part of the room, opposite from where the growling/purring stranger had walked in; so the Namek now knew where the door to the room is probably located. As for the something moving, Piccolo wondered, could it be Goku. Piccolo intentionally sniffed the air-phew! Saiya-jin body odor! Yup, at least Goku is in the room. If the moving thing expresses an interest in food, provoked by the smell of soup, ‘Then I have a theory….’

“Mmmmmmmmmmmm, *Smells*Yummy*!” a familiar voice sounded out rather audibly. Yup, Piccolo’s theory was correct-Son Goku is alive!

“Goku, you woke up just in time for some home-made soup and a few kind words,” Piccolo said.

“From Chi-Chi?” Goku naively asked.

“No, Goku, use your ears-what’s that sound, do people constantly bang pipes, like they are working around the clock to fix something, or like they are trying to communicate in some sort of variant of Morse-Code-is that what usually happens where you live?! Do you live near a subway-tunnel? Goku, you need to know that we are being helped by some total strangers.”

“Well, I’m still happy to know that we’re not in a hospital,” Goku chirped, “And thank you for everything, including the soup.”

“Don’t mention it,” the feline growl/purr gently replied. “But I must confess, that while you are not in any *Above*ground hospital, you are still in the Infirmary unit of my people’s….*pauses a half-second too long*….’village’, if I can use that word.” Goku was too busy slurping-up whatever the spoon held to have noticed what the stranger had said, but Piccolo noticed, and he made a mental note of the precise verbiage. The stranger was trying to not let him or Goku in on too much.

‘Okay, this stranger is capable of both kindness and secretiveness. This can get very…*Interesting*’ Picc thought to himself. He kept his thoughts to himself to ponder when the stranger was out of the room and when Goku had stopped those very unpleasant sounds of eating, no, actually *Inhaling* the soup fed to him. All of that done, Picco then realized that he was too tired, too drugged-up, too wracked with pain all-over, and too-gasp!!!-too *Weak*! To remain awake any longer would be foolishness; might as well sleep again right now…

To be continued in Chapter Five