Dragon Ball Z
The Android War

Chapter Two
Piccolo's Quest

South City, the next day,
Two days until the arrival of the Androids…

Piccolo adjusted the Scouter on the side of his head, again. The odd instrument, despite being designed with lots of different potential users in mind, was obviously not mean to be worn by someone with sensitive ears.
Looking through the green lens with one eye, Piccolo could see a myriad of data jumping at him from all directions: everything from the wind-speed and humidity, to the power level of the bird he could see roosting in the top of the telegraph pole adjacent to the top of the building on which he currently stood. It hurt at first, but he tried his best to ignore it; after all, if a weakling like Raditz could wear one, he most certainly could.
After twenty-four hours, he had found not even the slightest trace of these phantom power levels Kami claimed to have sensed. Piccolo accepted the Kami was more in touch with the Earth's Ki than he was, but he found it hard to accept that any power level high enough to worry Kami would have gone unnoticed by him or Goku, or most certainly by Vegeta.
Lifting himself a few meagre inches from the ground, and listening to the satisfying sound of his cape billowing in the wind, Piccolo moved to the next rooftop.

"Doctor Gatoka, I can see one of them."
"Excellent Trinity, which one is it?" Gatoka asked through the comm.
Trinity Adams ran a hand through her light green hair, and gazed at Piccolo longingly. "Its Piccolo, the Namek. Tall, dark, handsome and ¾"
"I get it, Trinity," Gatoka interjected jokingly. "Keep an eye on him and make sure he hasn't found the lab, but don't get spotted yourself."
At that she closed the communication channel, and walked slowly across the sidewalk, following Piccolo's unmistakable energy signal as the Namek leapt from building to building.
Dressed in black skin-tight shorts, and yellow Capsule Corp™ boots, as well as a layered black and white top, Trinity Adams stood out in a crowd far less than did her Namekian quarry; which was perfectly acceptable to her. With another quick brush of her aquamarine hair, she tapped the small metal disc attached to her clothes that activated her personal cloaking device; a machine that rendered his invisible both the eye, and to any other kind of detection method for that that matter. The device operated by shifting her body slightly into another dimension, thereby making it seems as though she was not there. Unfortunately, when he had given her the machine, Doctor Gatoka had informed her that overuse of it could permanently shift her into another realm, killing her.
It was for this reason that she only used it when subtlety was as paramount as it was at was now.
She lifted herself into the air with but one of the myriad Saiyan talents she and her brother had been gifted with, and followed Piccolo, knowing that she was completely undetectable, even by the modified Scouter that he now adorned.
"This is great!" she said to herself, confident that even her voice was far enough out of this dimension not to be heard even by Namekian ears. "Not only does Piccolo not know I'm near him, he doesn't even know what he's looking for," she laughed.
Sure enough, Piccolo was completely at a loss, that is until something appeared on the Scouter, rendering the otherwise docile machine unusually active.
Through the tinted lens, Piccolo could see what appeared to be an enormous power level come out of nowhere.
"Gotcha now," Piccolo said, somewhat happily. And with a smug smirk on his face, Piccolo blasted off the roof of a building, and into the horizon with a supersonic boom.
Trinity gasped, and quickly followed suit as fast as she could, blasting away a few unsuspecting humans in the process. She flew as fast as she could, but after only a few days' practise with her powers, her speed was nothing compared to Piccolo's. The Namek easily outpaced her, and soon she could no longer see him. She could only hope that her brother had no been stupid enough to have fun with his powers, and was leading Piccolo to him. After all, how would the Namek react to the presence of more Saiyans?
With that in mind, she slowed down, lowered herself to the ground elegantly, and deactivated her personal cloak.
"Doctor Gatoka!" she called.
An irritated cough through her communicator indicated a reply.
"I lost Piccolo; he's too fast," she said embarrassedly.
"Fear not, Trinity. It is of no concern; your brother and I are inside the lab and have sealed the exit. Even if Piccolo stands on our doorstep, he will find nothing."
"That's a relief," she replied. "For a second there I thought I would have to fight him."
"Not that such a battle would be problematic for a fighter so skilled as yourself. And so you know, I am sending Cobalt on a mission of great importance soon; he will contact you when he needs you. And well done, Trinity"
Trinity smiled sheepishly, and looked into he horizon where a faint flicker of Piccolo's aura trail was still visible. A strange feeling had overcome her, looking at his dark, serious eyes ¾ a feeling that she was too proud to accept…
Noticing now that Gatoka was no longer listening to her, she leaned up against the wall of a nearby building, and sighed. She watched as two people walked past her, completely oblivious as to who she was. A young man and a female associate, quietly conversing over some trivial matter that had popped up during their normal day's routine. Only a year ago, she would have been doing the same thing.
She leaned off the wall, and began to walk down the street with her hands on her hips, and began to sing to herself: "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey…"

The wind rushing in his eyes was a familiar feeling to Piccolo, but the tremendous amount of power that both he and the Scouter had picked up were not. Only because Bulma had modified it, had the machine not blown up on his face. If he had read the numbers correctly, and he assumed that was the case, the power level, or levels, he had seen were both over thirty million. Such power was incomprehensible. It would have made Frieza seem like an ant, and was enough to make him worry; what if this was only the most basic level of power that these 'phantoms' he was chasing could muster, what if this was only a fraction of it…
Then another worrying thought forced its way to the forefront of his mind. What if he had to fight these creatures, and what if Kami fell ill again? Piccolo had no idea just how much Kami's illness was affecting him. What if Kami died? He would die…
Piccolo shook those thoughts away.
Once again, he adjusted the cumbersome Scouter, and stopped in the air, surveying the ground beneath him. He stood overlooking a deep canyon, with river running down the centre. Trees near the banks of the river made it impossible to see exactly what was down there, if anything. Although, looking to the Scouter, Piccolo could see that the power levels had been detected right beneath him, presumably in the canyon.
Seeing no other option, Piccolo began to lower himself down the five hundred or so feet between him and the canyon floor.
As he began his descent, the Scouter flashed at him for an instant, and displayed the same power levels it had detected back in the city. Swallowing hard, Piccolo continued down.
Again the Scouter flashed; this time it read two powers, both very close by. Since he couldn't sense them himself, Piccolo had no idea how he measured up against them, and he didn't have the time to use the Scouter on himself, so he dropped down further, and landed on the canyon floor.
His boots crunched over small shells and collected wet sand as he strode down the banks of a river. His left eye remained focused on the Scouter, while his right scanned for anything suspicious.
Once again, the Scouter bleeped at him, this time much more urgently in tone. It read the powers as being very, very close.
They were behind him.
Piccolo turned around, and didn't even have time to scream before someone delivered a punishing blow to his gut, knocking the wind from his lungs, and forcing him to his knees in less than a second.
He spat up a few droplets of purple blood, and looked up just quickly enough to gaze into a set of dark eyes before another blow, this time to his head, sent the Namek into unconsciousness without a sound…